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Enantio

Constraint
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 poem that expresses opposing ideas or reverses meaning through antithetical structure.

Detailed Definition
Enantio (from Greek for “opposite”) constructs poetry around contradiction, chiasmus, or semantic inversion, where lines or stanzas negate or reverse prior statements; this constraint embodies dialectical thinking, common in epigrams or koan-like verse, and uses oppositional logic to explore paradox, irony, or the coexistence of contraries within a unified formal framework.
Example
Example in poetry:
Enantio (opposite-meaning constraint): poems using antonyms in parallel lines (“light”/“dark”); Oulipo’s “antisonnet” reversing traditional themes; e.e. cummings’ “since feeling is first” contrasts thought/feeling; constraint where each stanza negates the prior; bilingual poems translating words into opposites; enantio lipograms avoiding positive/negative words alternately.
Additional Notes
Enantio constraint uses opposites—antonyms, inversions, negations. It creates tension or irony. Students might write a poem where each line negates the prior. It relates to dicot and flip, useful for dialectical thinking.
Also Known As
Enantiosis opposite pairing
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