- Score sentences in a source text by POSITIVE or NEGATIVE sentiment
- Find best (most POSITIVE) and worst (most NEGATIVE) sentences from the source text
- Plot sentence sentiment over time through the source text
- Plot sentence scores sorted from best to worst on a graph for distribution
Sentences were split using common punctuation delimiters and double spaces. A sentence is scored as the total of the scores of its words, e.g.:
We were happy(+3 👍) with the excellent(+3 👍) service, but the boring(-3 👎) music made us uncomfortable(-2 👎).
Sentence score: +1 👍
I used a file called AFINN (paper) which contains a list of words with a POSITIVE or NEGATIVE score.
Sentiment words have different scores to distinguish intensity - for example:
| 👉 | Word | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 👍 | outstanding | +5 |
| 👍 | fantastic | +4 |
| 👍 | delight | +3 |
| 👍 | advantage | +2 |
| 👍 | adequate | +1 |
| 👎 | alas | -1 |
| 👎 | upset | -2 |
| 👎 | violence | -3 |
| 👎 | catastrophic | -4 |
| 👎 | (expletives and racism) | -5 |
It was made for analysing informal modern text (e.g. Tweets) and contains slang, but I have mostly used it for old, public-domain texts and found it to be very reliable.
Unlisted words are scored 0.
I mostly ran the analysis on public domain books from [Project Gutenberg] (https://www.gutenberg.org/). I also tried it out on movie scripts and a couple news articles. I am still adding to this section. :^)
| 👉 | Sentence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 👍 | 12:43 Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off. |
+25 |
| 👉 | Sentence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 👎 | 5:21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. |
-25 |
Graphing sentiment over the sentences of the text does not seem to reveal anything interesting. It is just not showing the right level of information.
So I tried splitting it out by book, and I think this reveals some more interesting features.
The bars show the mean average sentiment score of sentences with sentiment score ≠ 0 (sentences with score = 0 are ignored/discarded)
| 👉 | Sentence | Score | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 👍 | None here, he hopes, In all this noble bevy, has brought with her One care abroad; he would have all as merry As, first, good company, good wine, good welcome, Can make good people. |
+23 | Henry VIII |
| 👍 | O wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping! |
+20 | As You Like It |
| 👍 | Tranio, since for the great desire I had To see fair Padua, nursery of arts, I am arriv'd for fruitful Lombardy, The pleasant garden of great Italy, And by my father's love and leave am arm'd With his good will and thy good company, My trusty servant well approv'd in all, Here let us breathe, and haply institute A course of learning and ingenious studies. |
+20 | The Taming of the Shrew |
| 👉 | Sentence | Score | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 👎 | Fear and be slain-no worse can come to fight; And fight and die is death destroying death, Where fearing dying pays death servile breath. |
-21 | Richard II |
| 👎 | Come down and welcome me to this world's light; Confer with me of murder and of death; There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place, No vast obscurity or misty vale, Where bloody murder or detested rape Can couch for fear but I will find them out; And in their ears tell them my dreadful name- Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake. |
-21 | Titus Andronicus |
| 👎 | I'll put't in proof, And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in-law, Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill! |
-20 | King Lear |
| 👉 | Sentence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 👍 | He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. |
+18 |
| 👍 | And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. |
+16 |
| 👍 | Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness! |
+15 |
| 👉 | Sentence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 👎 | Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears. |
-13 |
| 👎 | At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be. |
-9 |
| 👎 | He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language. |
-9 |
| 👉 | Sentence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 👍 | Every young man who came to the house—seeing those impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of young girls ready for anything and full of hope—experienced the same feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostóvs’ household a readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness. |
+19 |
| 👍 | Only it seems to me that Christian love, love of one’s neighbor, love of one’s enemy, is worthier, sweeter, and better than the feelings which the beautiful eyes of a young man can inspire in a romantic and loving young girl like yourself. |
+18 |
| 👉 | Sentence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 👎 | Before partisan warfare had been officially recognized by the government, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders, and foragers had been destroyed by the Cossacks and the peasants, who killed them off as instinctively as dogs worry a stray mad dog to death. |
-18 |
| 👎 | It was not Napoleon alone who had experienced that nightmare feeling of the mighty arm being stricken powerless, but all the generals and soldiers of his army whether they had taken part in the battle or not, after all their experience of previous battles—when after one tenth of such efforts the enemy had fled—experienced a similar feeling of terror before an enemy who, after losing HALF his men, stood as threateningly at the end as at the beginning of the battle. |
-16 |
- Word/sentiment list: AFINN (paper)
- Language: Javascript
- Environment: Node.js
- Graphs: Microsoft Excel
- Libraries: None
- AFINN word-sentiment list (paper) - Finn Årup Nielsen
- Project Gutenberg
- Emoji cheat sheet - WebpageFX