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Summary judgment

Structure
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 final evaluative pronouncement that assesses or concludes the poem's content.

Detailed Definition
Final lines offering conclusive assessment, verdict, or evaluation rather than open-ended reflection. More definitive than gentle closing remarks, summary judgments pronounce authoritative conclusions on poem's subjects or themes. Yeats's endings often deliver summary judgments on history, human nature, or existence itself. Should feel earned by preceding content rather than arbitrarily imposed. Risk becoming too absolute or didactic if heavy-handed, but when skillfully deployed provide satisfying sense of resolution and authoritative closure that rewards reader's journey through poem.
Example
Example in poetry:
A "summary judgment" in poetry occurs when a speaker abruptly concludes moral or emotional evaluation, as in Auden’s “September 1, 1939”: “We must love one another or die”; Claudia Rankine’s "Citizen" delivers swift ethical verdicts on microaggressions; Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129 ends with a stark moral summation: “All this the world well knows; yet none knows well / To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell”; In Tracy K. Smith’s “The United States Welcomes You,” the poem closes with a chilling bureaucratic verdict that functions as poetic judgment.
Additional Notes
Final lines offering conclusive judgment or assessment. More definitive than open-ended reflection. Yeats's endings often deliver summary judgments on history or human nature. Should feel earned by what precedes. Can risk being too absolute or didactic if not carefully handled.
Also Known As
final verdict concluding assessment terminal evaluation closing pronouncement Epithonema
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