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Ethopoeia

Rhetorical Devices
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

Ethopoeia is the creation of a person's character or voice through imagined speech. A poet may speak as another figure to reveal that figure's values, feelings, and manner of thought.

Detailed Definition
Ethopoeia gives a constructed voice to a real, fictional, historical, or mythic person. Rather than simply describing that person's character, the poet invents language appropriate to the figure's age, status, situation, motives, and emotional state. The device is central to dramatic monologue, elegy, prayer, and persona poetry, where readers infer character from tone and choice of words. Poets employ ethopoeia to cultivate empathy, test an unfamiliar perspective, animate the past, or expose the gap between what a speaker says and what the poem allows readers to perceive.
Example
Example in poetry:
“A poem in Penelope’s voice might say, ‘Each night I unweave the future they demand of me’”; “A dramatic monologue lets a condemned queen declare, ‘I will not kneel before their verdict’”; “A child speaker says, ‘The moon followed me home because it was lonely too’”; “A raven speaks in a poem: ‘I remember every winter roof where hunger waited’”
Additional Notes
Ethopoeia requires a poet to imagine how another person would speak, think, and justify actions. It can portray historical figures, mythic characters, opponents, or versions of the self. Strong ethopoeia depends on distinctive diction and perspective rather than stereotypes, and it raises useful questions about voice and representation.
Other Meanings of “Ethopoeia”
Also Known As
Character Portrayal Impersonated Speech Moral Portraiture
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