The primary focus of this scientific article is to learn and compare lexical units meaning sorrow and grief in two languages in different periods, analysing the sequential linguistic changes and development in two different cultures and languages. In order to go more specifically to the topic, two different literary works were chosen in two languages and observed in detail. Tragic works include more emotional scenes and speeches than any other genres to learn and investigate, so that two well-known works of English and Uzbek literatures: Othello by W.Shakespeare and Mirzo Ulugbek by Maksud Shaykhzoda were selected for this work. While learning these two works, several lexical units were found expressing “sorrow” and “grief” and compared to the modern way of describing this emotional condition in both languages.