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mournful lyric

Form
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

A lyric poem expressing deep sorrow, often personal, through reflective tone, melancholic imagery, and emotional cadence.

Detailed Definition
A mournful lyric expresses sorrow, longing, or regret through subdued diction, minor-key imagery, and restrained rhythm; it avoids melodrama in favor of introspective nuance, often using natural metaphors (wilting flowers, fading light) to convey private grief or existential melancholy with quiet intensity.
Example
Example in poetry:
W.H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues” (“Stop all the clocks”) is a mournful lyric expressing profound grief; Christina Rossetti’s “Remember” offers a tender, restrained mournful lyric about loss; Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” conveys mournful lyricism through understated details of a brother’s death; Emily Dickinson’s “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” captures numb sorrow in mournful lyric form.
Additional Notes
A mournful lyric expresses sorrow with restraint and musicality, focusing on personal loss; differs from lament by its controlled tone; Dickinson and Heaney offer models of dignified grief.
Also Known As
Sorrowful lyric grief-stricken verse plaintive song elegiac fragment Mournful verse Weeping verse
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