Poetic Emotion and Poetic Style: The 100 Poems Most Frequently Included in Anthologies and the Work of Emily Dickinson

The 100 most frequently anthologized English poems and the work of Emily Dickinson were analyzed empirically in terms of emotion, sound, and style. Results for the 100 poems indicated that poetry was significantly more Pleasant, less Active, more highly Imaged, and in several ways more complex than normal everyday English. In terms of sounds, the 100 poems included significantly more Sad, Passive, Soft, and Pleasant sounds and fewer Active and Nasty sounds than everyday English. Because of relationships between measures, seven factors were sufficient to explain most of the differences among poems. The 100 most frequently anthologized poems are ranked individually in terms of these factors. The poems of Emily Dickinson were significantly less Pleasant, less Active, and more Negative, though containing more Active and Nasty sounds.