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stolen line

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 line borrowed from another poet’s work and repurposed in a new poem

Detailed Definition
Stolen line is a poetic technique where a phrase or line is taken from another text—often without quotation—and repurposed to create new meaning through context; this act of literary appropriation, seen in centos or postmodern collage, blurs authorship and invites intertextual dialogue.
Example
Example in poetry:
T.S. Eliot’s use of “I will show you fear in a handful of dust” (from The Waste Land, borrowing from other texts); Plath’s “Daddy” quoting nursery rhymes; A poem opening with “Let us go then…” (Eliot); A line lifted from Shakespeare in a modern context
Additional Notes
A stolen line is a borrowed phrase or verse from another poet, used without quotation but with transformative intent; it’s a form of allusive borrowing that recontextualizes the original.
Also Known As
Borrowed line echoed phrase poetic lift textual appropriation Kleptic line
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