Text-echoing sonnet

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

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 sonnet that repeats, reworks, or responds to lines or ideas from other writings

Detailed Definition
Text-echoing sonnet is a fourteen-line poem that subtly incorporates language, imagery, or formal elements from earlier sonnets or literary sources, creating a dialogue between past and present within the constrained form; such sonnets honor tradition while reinterpreting it through contemporary voice, theme, or crisis.
Example
Example in poetry:
W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” echoes Yeats’s own poems; Natasha Trethewey’s “Elegy for the Native Guards” echoes historical documents; Terrance Hayes’s “American Sonnet” echoes Amiri Baraka; Tracy K. Smith’s “The United States Welcomes You” echoes policy texts.
Additional Notes
A text-echoing sonnet uses the 14-line form to dialogue with another poem or tradition; students should compare structure, theme, and volta to the echoed source.
Also Known As
Skip to main content