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Yearning

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 of intense, aching desire for something absent, unattainable, or idealized, often imbuing verse with emotional urgency.

Detailed Definition
Yearning mood in poetry expresses deep desire—romantic, spiritual, or existential—through evocative imagery, unresolved cadence, and emotional vulnerability; it appears in sonnets, mystic verse, or exile poetry—like Rilke or Neruda—where absence becomes a creative force, shaping language into a bridge toward the unreachable and giving voice to the ache of incompleteness.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “Fern Hill,” Dylan Thomas yearns for lost childhood; Emily Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” yearns for past vitality; In “The Road Not Taken,” Frost’s speaker yearns for certainty; Sylvia Plath’s “Morning Song” yearns for maternal connection; Thomas Hardy’s “The Voice” expresses yearning for a dead lover; In “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Keats yearns for eternal beauty.
Additional Notes
Yearning mood conveys intense, often unfulfilled desire; signaled by reaching imagery, unresolved cadence, and emotional urgency—e.g., unrequited love or exile poems; related to wistful, restless, and nostalgic moods; central to the Romantic tradition of longing.
Other Meanings of “Yearning”
Also Known As
Longing Wistful Nostalgic Pining Desirous Nostalgia Wish desiderium cumha Desire Homesickness wistlessness
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