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Sorrowful

Mood
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 mood characterized by profound grief, melancholy, or empathetic sorrow, often evoked through imagery, diction, and tone that convey loss, regret, or lamentation.

Detailed Definition
Sorrowful mood in poetry expresses heartfelt mourning or empathetic pain, often through elegiac tone, restrained diction, and poignant imagery; it appears in laments, dirges, or reflective lyrics—like those of Auden or Hardy—where the poet gives voice to loss without melodrama, honoring the depth of human feeling through dignified expression.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “The Raven,” Poe’s speaker is sorrowful over lost Lenore; Emily Dickinson’s “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” describes sorrowful numbness; In “Fern Hill,” Dylan Thomas mourns lost youth with sorrowful nostalgia; Thomas Hardy’s “The Voice” expresses sorrowful longing; Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror” portrays sorrowful aging; In “Dover Beach,” Matthew Arnold laments a sorrowful world without faith.
Additional Notes
Sorrowful mood expresses deep sadness, often empathetic; conveyed through lamenting tone, tearful imagery, and minor cadence—central to elegiac tradition; related to mournful, doleful, and disconsolate moods; differs from melancholic in its immediacy and outward expression.
Also Known As
Mournful Sad Grieving Heartbroken Woeful Disconsolate Doleful Melancholic Melancholy Rueful dolfull mournfu' Waesome dolorous Dreeven wailful
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