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Congeries

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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 accumulation of nouns, adjectives, or phrases in close succession to amplify emotion, create intensity, or emphasize abundance.

Detailed Definition
Congeries refers to a dense accumulation or piling up of nouns, adjectives, or images without conjunctions (a form of asyndeton), creating a vivid, often overwhelming sensory or emotional effect; commonly used in descriptive or ekphrastic poetry, congeries immerses readers in a cascade of impressions, as in Whitman’s catalogs or Hopkins’ inscape renderings.
Example
Example in poetry:
Congeries: Whitman’s catalogs: “The carpenter, the tongue, the door”; Marvell’s “vegetable love” piles images; Original: “Keys, receipts, lint, hope—my pocket’s chaos”
Additional Notes
Accumulation or heaping up of words or phrases. Creates abundance and emphasis. Related to: amplification, accumulation. Classical rhetorical figure for intensity.
Other Meanings of “Congeries”
Also Known As
accumulation heaping up
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