Antanagoge

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A rhetorical move that places a favourable point after a negative one to lessen its effect.

Detailed Definition
Antanagoge is a rhetorical strategy that counters a negative point by immediately following it with a positive one, transforming potential weakness into strength; in poetry, it creates resilience or optimism amid adversity, as in “Though I fall, I rise again.”
Example
Example in poetry:
Antanagoge in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29: “Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, / Haply I think on thee”; antanagoge in Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” counters oppression with resilience; antanagoge in Langston Hughes’s “Mother to Son” offsets hardship with perseverance; antanagoge balances negative with positive in same clause
Additional Notes
Responding to criticism by countering with positive argument. Rhetorical defense strategy in verse. Related to antithesis but specifically defensive. Useful in satirical or argumentative poetry.
Also Known As
Compensatory response Balancing retort Counter-argument figure Offsetting reply
Skip to main content