Home › Glossary › Letter H

hue change

Device
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

Poetic use of altering color descriptions to suggest transformation

Detailed Definition
Hue change denotes a deliberate shift in color imagery within a poem to signal emotional transition, temporal passage, or symbolic transformation—such as moving from red to blue to convey anger cooling into sorrow; this chromatic progression functions as a non-verbal narrative device, enriching mood and meaning through the psychology of color perception.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” hue change shifts from “purple-stainèd mouth” to “embalmed darkness”; Emily Dickinson’s “A Light exists in Spring” tracks seasonal hue shifts from gold to gray; Wallace Stevens’ “The Snow Man” moves from white snow to “the nothing that is”; Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips” shifts from white hospital walls to violent red flowers; Contemporary poet Tracy K. Smith’s “The United States Welcomes You” uses hue change from “amber” to “black” to signal threat; Derek Walcott’s “A Far Cry from Africa” shifts from “tawny pelt” to “white peace” to critique colonial color symbolism.
Additional Notes
A thematic or descriptive shift in the poem that involves a noticeable change in the dominant color or light palette being used; signifies a transition in mood, setting, or emotional state.
Also Known As
color shift shade change tonal alteration chromatic variation Chromatic shift
Skip to main content