Home › Glossary › Letter P

prosodic grave

Meter
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 metrical position occupied by an unstressed or light syllable, often used to vary rhythm or create prosodic contrast.

Detailed Definition
A prosodic grave is a metrical position—usually the final syllable of a line—that carries exceptional weight or solemnity through stress, length, or pause; it functions as a rhythmic anchor, often coinciding with thematic resolution or emotional climax in classical and modern verse.
Example
Example in poetry:
Prosodic grave appears in Milton’s “Lycidas,” where caesura and heavy stresses mark elegiac weight; In Tennyson’s “In Memoriam,” iambic tetrameter with solemn pauses; In Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” spondaic emphasis on “holy glimmers”; In Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break,” understated rhythm conveying grief; In contemporary elegies by Marie Howe, where line breaks function as prosodic graves.
Additional Notes
A prosodic grave indicates a stressed or metrically heavy syllable in scansion—used in analyzing meter; opposite of “prosodic acute” (light/unstressed).
Also Known As
Prosodic accent metrical stress rhythmic emphasis grave accent accent grave
Skip to main content