Home › Glossary › Letter C

Cognitive dissonance verse

Concept
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

Verse that deliberately creates tension between style and subject

Detailed Definition
Cognitive dissonance verse explores the psychological tension arising from conflicting beliefs, values, or perceptions through poetic form and content; such poems often juxtapose contradictory images, tones, or voices within a single stanza or line—e.g., praising beauty while describing decay—to evoke unease, irony, or moral complexity, as in Sylvia Plath’s confessional lyrics or the ethical paradoxes of W.H. Auden’s wartime verse, where formal harmony contrasts with thematic discord.
Example
Example in poetry:
Cognitive dissonance verse: Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” merges circus spectacle with suicide; Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait” juxtaposes art critique with intimate doubt; A poem declaring “I am happy” while describing a funeral; Contemporary verse that pairs climate data with love lyrics; Such poetry thrives on unresolved tension between idea and image.
Additional Notes
Verse creating tension between contradictory ideas or sensory experiences. Challenges reader expectations. Related to: paradox, oxymoron. Modernist technique for complexity.
Also Known As
Contradictory verse dissonant poetry tension verse conflicted poetry
Skip to main content