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Ecphorical address

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 address in the poem that directly calls out an absent or hypothetical addressee.

Detailed Definition
Ecphorical address is a direct invocation of a person, object, or abstraction (often absent) that functions as both description and dialogue; central to apostrophe, this technique animates the inanimate, as in Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” or Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” where the addressed artifact becomes a silent interlocutor that challenges or transforms the speaker.
Example
Example in poetry:
Addressing a work of art directly: “O Urn, thou still unravish’d bride!”; Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”; Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo”; Modern: poems speaking to Basquiat paintings
Additional Notes
Direct address to quoted or evoked voice from another text. Intertextual apostrophe technique. Related to ekphrasis and allusion; creates dialogue across texts or time.
Also Known As
Oracular address Prophetic speech Elevated invocation
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