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Prosopopoeia

Device
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

A figure of speech in which an imaginary or absent person is represented as speaking

Detailed Definition
Prosopopoeia is a rhetorical figure where an absent, dead, or inanimate entity is given voice to speak directly, often used in elegies or political poetry to animate history, nature, or abstract concepts; it collapses temporal distance and imbues objects with urgent subjectivity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Prosopopoeia: In John Donne’s "Death, be not proud," Death is personified and addressed directly: "Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men," exemplifying prosopopoeia.
Additional Notes
Giving voice to absent, dead, or inanimate things. Also called personification or apostrophe. Creates dramatic immediacy. Study how poets animate the voiceless.
Other Meanings of “Prosopopoeia”
Also Known As
personification of voice mask speech
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