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Euphoria

Psychology
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

Intense excitement and happiness, often disproportionate to circumstance.

Detailed Definition
Euphoria can signal mania or transcendent joy. Poetry captures its fleeting intensity through exuberant diction, rapid rhythm, or hyperbolic imagery, contrasting it with subsequent despair to underscore emotional volatility or spiritual revelation.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Sylvia Plath’s “Ariel,” euphoria surges in the horseback ride toward self-annihilation or transcendence; In William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” euphoria blooms with the daffodils; In Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” manic euphoria erupts in prophetic vision; In Emily Dickinson’s “I taste a liquor never brewed,” euphoria intoxicates through nature; In Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” euphoria radiates from cosmic unity; In Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to Joy,” euphoria celebrates simple, sensual pleasures.
Additional Notes
Euphoria—an intense elation—often appears in visionary or manic poetry (Ginsberg’s “Howl,” Plath’s “Ariel”); differs from joy by its transient, sometimes dangerous, quality; poets use rapid enjambment, exclamation, or synesthetic imagery to convey it; students should consider whether euphoria leads to transcendence or collapse; note its clinical link to bipolar disorder, but also its spiritual dimensions.
Also Known As
Elation Bliss Ecstasy Rapture Exhilaration
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