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Moralism

Philosophy
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

Moralism is the tendency to prioritize moral judgment over aesthetic, psychological, or contextual complexity.

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Detailed Definition
Poetry often resists moralism by embracing ambiguity, contradiction, or empathy beyond judgment. Yet some didactic or activist verse uses moralism deliberately—to condemn injustice or uphold ethical clarity against relativism or evasion.
Example
Example in poetry:
Moralism appears in Alexander Pope’s satires, which judge vice with poetic severity; Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" imposes moral consequence for killing the albatross; 18th-century didactic poetry often prioritized moral instruction over artistry; moralism is critiqued in Wallace Stevens’s "Sunday Morning," which questions Christian morality in favor of earthly beauty; W.H. Auden’s later poetry avoids moralism by embracing ambiguity over judgment.
Additional Notes
Moralism judges art by ethical criteria alone, neglecting complexity; didactic poetry (Pope) often falls into it, while modernists (Eliot) seek moral vision without preachiness; students should distinguish poems that explore moral dilemmas (Heaney’s “Punishment”) from those that impose rigid judgments—asking whether ambiguity enriches or evades ethical responsibility.
Also Known As
Didacticism Moralizing Ethical Judgment
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