Home › Glossary › Letter M

Mourning unbroken lines

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

Mourning unbroken lines describe an elegy written in continuous verse without stanza breaks, conveying unrelenting sorrow or solemnity.

Detailed Definition
Elegiac poetry composed without stanzaic divisions, allowing continuous, unbroken flow of mourning expression throughout the composition. This non-stanzaic approach creates sustained emotional unity and intensity, avoiding compartmentalization and pauses that formal breaks might introduce, particularly common in modernist and contemporary elegies where poets seek to capture grief's flowing, unstructured nature or create seamless meditations on loss without artificial organizational divisions.
Example
Example in poetry:
Mourning unbroken lines avoid enjambment for solemn continuity: W.S. Merwin’s later elegies use left-aligned, unbroken lines: “When you go out into the snow”; Contemporary example: “The river flows. The names sink. The stones remain.”; In classical epitaphs: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water” (Keats’ gravestone); Such lines feel inevitable, like fate; They reject fragmentation for stoic acceptance; Often use periods to mark finality.
Additional Notes
Creates continuous flow without stanzaic breaks. Allows sustained meditation on loss. More common in modernist and contemporary elegies than traditional forms.
Also Known As
Non-stanzaic elegy Continuous mourning verse Flowing lament Unbroken dirge Elegiac stichic
Skip to main content