Home › Glossary › Letter C

Chronoclasm

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 device that breaks or shatters the linear flow of time within a poem

Detailed Definition
Chronoclasm refers to the poetic disruption or fragmentation of linear time—through anachronism, temporal collage, or nonlinear narrative—to challenge chronological perception; such verse juxtaposes past, present, and future in a single moment, as in Eliot’s “Four Quartets” or contemporary trauma poetry, where psychological time overrides clock time to express memory’s fluidity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Disruption of chronological order: “Yesterday I’ll die, tomorrow I was born”; Eliot’s “Four Quartets” folding past/future; Anne Carson’s “The Glass Essay” blending timelines; Fragmented narratives in Claudia Rankine’s lyric essays
Additional Notes
Temporal disruption or breaking of chronological order within poem, creating non-linear narrative. Greek klasma (breaking). Related to anachronism but describes structural rather than historical temporal violations.
Also Known As
time break temporal fracture
Skip to main content