Home › Glossary › Letter C

Curtal

Form
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 form deliberately shortened from a traditional model, often retaining key features while reducing line or stanza count.

Detailed Definition
Curtal refers to a shortened or abbreviated poetic form, most famously used by Gerard Manley Hopkins in his “curtal sonnets,” which compress the traditional 14-line structure into 10.5 lines while preserving proportional sections; this technique reflects theological or aesthetic principles of condensation and intensity without sacrificing formal integrity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty” as curtal sonnet (10.5 lines); Abbreviated form compressing volta and resolution; Modern: poets using curtal for ironic brevity; Example: “Half a sonnet for half a love”
Additional Notes
Curtal means shortened or abbreviated. Most famous in curtal sonnet (shortened sonnet). From Latin curtus "cut short." Signals modification of standard form—usually proportional reduction.
Also Known As
shortened form abbreviated verse
Skip to main content