Extended narrative

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 poem that tells a story over an unusually long length, often with episodic structure

Detailed Definition
Extended narrative refers to a long-form poetic work that tells a story over multiple sections or books, incorporating character development, plot progression, and thematic complexity; from epics like The Iliad to modern verse novels like Vikram Seth’s The Golden Gate, it blends lyrical intensity with storytelling, often using varied meters and voices to sustain reader engagement.
Example
Example in poetry:
Homer’s “Odyssey” is a foundational extended narrative poem; Derek Walcott’s “Omeros” reimagines epic in Caribbean context; Anne Carson’s “Autobiography of Red” blends novel and lyric over many pages; Alice Notley’s “The Descent of Alette” uses quotation marks to sustain a long feminist narrative.
Additional Notes
Extended narrative spans multiple sections or poems to tell a story over time; differs from epic by often focusing on personal or domestic scale rather than heroic deeds.
Also Known As
Narrative sequence poetic saga extended lyric tale serial narrative Alexandriad Long narrative
Skip to main content