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Metaphysics

Metaphysics
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

The branch of philosophy examining the nature of reality beyond the physical, including existence, time, causality, and the relationship between mind and matter.

Detailed Definition
In poetry, metaphysics denotes both subject matter and method: poets use imaginative conceits to probe invisible truths, bridging logic and emotion. The term defines a poetic mode—especially in 17th-century England—where intellectual rigor meets spiritual longing to explore what lies beyond sensory experience.
Example
Example in poetry:
John Donne’s “The Canonization” explores metaphysical union of souls; Emily Dickinson’s “The Brain—is wider than the Sky—” explores mind’s relation to cosmos; George Herbert’s “The Pulley” explores divine design; T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” explores time, eternity, and being; Sylvia Plath’s “Ariel” explores self-annihilation as transcendence; Rumi’s poetry explores the soul’s metaphysical journey to God.
Additional Notes
Metaphysics as poetic mode (coined by Johnson for Donne et al.) fuses intellectual rigor with emotional intensity, using conceits to explore existence, divinity, and love; it resists sentimentality by demanding reader’s active engagement with paradox, analogy, and argument.
Also Known As
Metaphysical Poetry Speculative Verse Philosophical Poetry
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