Apostrophe: Poem and Punctuation

I was writing a post for my Poets Online magazine about the poetry form, the apostrophe. As I was writing, I wondered if there was some connection to the apostrophe punctuation mark. Yes, there is a connection between the apostrophe poetic form and the punctuation mark, and it lies in their shared Greek etymology.

The connection is not in their function, but in the original meaning of the word. Both come from the same ancient Greek root meaning: "a turning away" or "elision" (an omission).

In the omission apostrophe (Figure of Speech), the speaker turns away from the immediate audience to address an absent person, an inanimate object, or an abstract idea (e.g., "O Death, be not proud"). In the apostrophe poetry form, the poem is addressed to someone or something absent (dead, not present, or unable to respond, such as with inanimate objects or abstract feelings).

The apostrophe punctuation mark literally shows where a letter or letters have been omitted in a contraction (e.g., 'tis for it is, or don't for do not.

Which Came First? The literary device is the older of the two. The rhetorical use of "apostrophe" to mean an address to an absent entity has been found in Greek drama and rhetoric since ancient times. The punctuation mark, which was introduced to English via French and Latin, only appeared in the 16th century to specifically mark the omission of a letter in writing.

Here's a very detailed explanation of the two: