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Stoic

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

Stoic describes a mood of calm endurance amid suffering, expressed through restrained language, rational tone, and absence of emotional outburst.

Detailed Definition
Stoic mood in poetry conveys quiet resilience through restrained diction, steady rhythm, and dignified imagery; it appears in elegies, wartime verse, or meditations on fate—like Hardy or Frost—where the speaker accepts suffering with grace, using emotional control not as coldness but as a form of strength that honors endurance in the face of inevitable loss.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “Dover Beach,” Matthew Arnold’s speaker accepts a joyless world with stoic resignation; In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the speaker’s paralysis carries stoic despair; Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips” conveys stoic hospital recovery; Emily Dickinson’s “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” describes stoic numbness; In “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot’s characters show stoic spiritual emptiness; In “Out, Out—,” Robert Frost ends with stoic silence after tragedy.
Additional Notes
Stoic mood conveys endurance without emotional display; signaled by restrained diction, steady rhythm, and understated imagery—e.g., war or survival poems; related to resigned, subdued, and detached moods; useful for exploring dignity in suffering.
Also Known As
Unemotional Enduring Impassive Resolute Unflinching Resigned Stiff upper lip stolid
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