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tournament

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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

Tournament is a formal series of mounted combats and other contests held as a spectacle of chivalry.

Detailed Definition
Tournament appears in poetry as a grand emblem of the organized display of martial skill and courtly display. In medieval literature it represents the social and military festival. Poets invoke the tournament to illustrate themes of the gathered knights, the proclamation of the challenge, and the cultural event that fused combat, pageantry, and the poetry of renown.
Example
Example in poetry:
The tournament’s gathered contests and public honor appear in poems of chivalric and collective display; Medieval and romantic verse place the entire festival of arms inside a single word; “They rode into the tournament as if riding into the only story that would be told of them” illustrates formal spectacle; Educational examples present the event as the organized form of multiple combats; Poets return to the tournament whenever individual worth must be proven under the eyes of the many.
Additional Notes
Tournament, the formal series of mounted combats and associated spectacles, supplies poets with the central image of chivalric display and public trial. The event’s combination of single jousts and general melees allows movement between individual and collective registers. Teachers may explore the relationship between the tournament and the surrounding courtly audience. Related forms include the tourney and the passage of arms. The image remains powerful because the entire social world is temporarily concentrated into the lists.
Also Known As
tourney
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