Home › Glossary › Letter F

Fictional dialogue

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 composed as a conversation between invented characters, often advancing narrative or theme

Detailed Definition
Fictional dialogue in poetry presents a conversation between invented characters or personas, often without narrative exposition, relying on voice, diction, and subtext to convey conflict, intimacy, or ideology; this dramatic mode, seen in Browning’s monologues or contemporary persona poems, uses speech acts to explore psychology, power dynamics, and social critique through implied interaction.
Example
Example in poetry:
Plato’s “Phaedrus,” using dialogue to explore rhetoric and love; Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues like “My Last Duchess,” implying a listener; T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a fictional interior dialogue; Rita Dove’s “Fifth Grade Autobiography,” imagining a child’s conversation with her father
Additional Notes
Fictional dialogue presents imagined conversations between characters, often without narrative framing; maintain distinct voices and subtext to avoid flat exposition—see Browning’s dramatic monologues for technique.
Also Known As
Dramatic Conversation Persona Dialogue Fictive Exchange Imagined Discourse Fictive conversation
Skip to main content