Home › Glossary › Letter E

Echoic sonnet

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 sonnet that incorporates echo-phrases—often repeating the end of one line at the start of the next—to create haunting, recursive effects.

Detailed Definition
Echoic sonnet incorporates literal or figurative echoes—through repeated words, mirrored syntax, or acoustic reverberation—as a structural and thematic device, often to explore memory, loss, or the haunting persistence of voice across time and space.
Example
Example in poetry:
In John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter” uses echoic sonnet to contrast art and life; In W.B. Yeats’ “Sailing to Byzantium,” golden artifacts echo eternal art in sonnet form; In Tracy K. Smith’s “My God, It’s Full of Stars,” cosmic echoes form echoic sonnet of paternal loss; In Ocean Vuong’s “Telemachus,” mythic echoes form echoic sonnet of filial grief; In Terrance Hayes’ “American Sonnet,” historical echoes form echoic sonnet of racial critique.
Additional Notes
Echoic sonnet incorporates sonic repetition (alliteration, assonance, internal rhyme) to create auditory resonance; it emphasizes musicality over narrative, often evoking mood or atmosphere through sound patterning.
Also Known As
Reverberating sonnet Repetitive fourteen-liner Echo-structured sonnet Resonant sonnet Text-echoing sonnet
Skip to main content