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self-contained

Concept
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 expression or unit that holds full independence of meaning

Detailed Definition
Self-contained describes a poetic unit—line, stanza, or entire poem—that achieves thematic and syntactic completeness without requiring external context; it functions as an independent aesthetic object, conveying a full thought or image within its boundaries, exemplified by epigrams or haiku that resonate fully in isolation.
Example
Example in poetry:
A haiku by Bashō—“Old pond / frog jumps in / sound of water”—is self-contained, needing no context; William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow” stands alone as a complete image; Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers” functions as a self-contained meditation; A limerick like “There once was a man from Nantucket” is self-contained in narrative and rhyme
Additional Notes
self-contained: Describes a poetic unit (line, couplet, stanza, or entire poem) that is grammatically and semantically complete within itself, requiring no information from the preceding or following units; opposite of enjambment.
Also Known As
Independent autonomous complete Autotelic
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