Home › Glossary › Letter E

Epitaphic poem

Genre
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 short, solemn poem modeled on tomb inscriptions, expressing remembrance, praise, or meditation on mortality in a memorial context.

Detailed Definition
Epitaphic poem is a short, commemorative verse inscribed on a tomb or written as if for one, typically praising the deceased and reflecting on mortality; it ranges from solemn Latin distichs to ironic modern quatrains, balancing brevity with enduring sentiment.
Example
Example in poetry:
Epitaphic poem: A full poem serving as a grave inscription, like Ben Jonson’s “On My First Son”: “For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such, / As what he loves may never like too much.”
Additional Notes
Poem resembling or functioning as epitaph. May not be literal gravestone text. Commemorative, brief, memorial tone. Related: elegy (longer), epitaph, memorial verse.
Also Known As
Memorial poem Tombstone verse Epitaph composition Grave poetry tomb elegy
Skip to main content