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Repetition with gap

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 poetic technique where repeated elements reappear after intervening lines or stanzas, reinforcing memory or structural echo.

Detailed Definition
Repetition with gap describes repeated elements separated by intervening material, creating echo across distance rather than immediate recurrence. This spacing allows accumulation between iterations, generating anticipation and emphasizing return through temporal or textual separation.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” repeats with gap before return; In “Citizen,” Rankine repeats tennis vignette with gap of other narratives; In “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Fair youth…” returns after stanzas as repetition with gap; In haiku sequences, “crow” appears in first and last stanza with gap; Student exercise: “She left at dawn… [three stanzas]… dawn again, she’s gone.”
Additional Notes
Repeated words, phrases, or elements with intervening material between occurrences, creating echoes across textual distance.
Also Known As
Spaced repetition Gapped echo Interrupted repeat Broken recurrence Diacope
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