Home › Glossary › Letter B

Borrowed persona

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 poetic voice adopted from a historical, fictional, or mythological figure to speak through their perspective

Detailed Definition
Borrowed persona is a poetic strategy in which the speaker adopts the voice of another—historical, fictional, mythological, or cultural—to explore perspectives beyond the self; while powerful for empathy or critique, it demands ethical awareness to avoid appropriation, requiring poets to engage in research, humility, and contextual sensitivity rather than superficial mimicry.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poet writing as Sappho to explore queer desire in ancient contexts; Contemporary poets adopting the voice of historical figures like Harriet Tubman to reframe narratives; Rita Dove’s “On the Bus with Rosa Parks,” using borrowed persona to honor civil rights legacy; Poems written from the perspective of mythological characters like Persephone to examine modern womanhood
Additional Notes
Borrowed persona involves adopting a voice not one’s own (historical, fictional, or cultural); requires ethical awareness and research to avoid appropriation or stereotyping.
Also Known As
assumed voice adopted speaker ventriloquized persona fictional mask borrowed speaker secondhand persona
Skip to main content