Entertainment / Literature / Elision: (verb form, elide) (1) In poetry, when the poet takes a word that ends in a vowel, and a following word that begins with a vowel, and blurs them together to create a single syllable, the result is an elision. Contrast with synaeresis, syncope, and acephalous lines. To download a PDF handout that discussing elision and other techniques in conjunction with meter, click here. (2) In linguistics, elision refers more generally to the omission of any sound in speech and writing, such as the word Hallowe'en (from 'All Hallows Evening') or in contractions like shan't (from 'shall not').
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Entertainment / Literature / Syncope: When a desperate poet drops a vowel sound between two consonants to make the meter match in each line. It can also be used as a rhetorical device any time a writer deletes a syllable or letter from th MORE
Entertainment / Literature / Scansion: The act of 'scanning' a poem to determine its meter. To perform scansion, the student breaks down each line into individual metrical feet and determines which syllables have heavy stress and which hav MORE
Lifestyle / Poetry / Synaeresis, Synaloepha: The contraction of two syllables into one, for metrical purposes, by changing two adjacent syllables into a diphthong. Paul fussell gives as an example the first line of john milton's paradise lost, ' MORE