“After great pain, a formal feeling comes –” Summary

“After great pain, a formal feeling comes –” Themes

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  The Numbness Following Emotional Trauma

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• 

  Suffering, Time, and Memory

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “After great pain, a formal feeling comes –”

• Lines 1-2

  After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
  The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 3-4

  The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
  And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-7

  The Feet, mechanical, go round –
  A Wooden way
  Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 8-9

  Regardless grown,
  A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 10-11

  This is the Hour of Lead –
  Remembered, if outlived,

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 12-13

  As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
  First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

  

  

  

  

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“After great pain, a formal feeling comes –” Symbols

• 

  Hard, Solid Materials

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“After great pain, a formal feeling comes –” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

  

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• Polysyndeton

  

  

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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“After great pain, a formal feeling comes –” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Formal
• Ceremonious
• "He, that bore"
• Ought
• Quartz
• Contentment

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “After great pain, a formal feeling comes –”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“After great pain, a formal feeling comes –” Speaker

“After great pain, a formal feeling comes –” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “After great pain, a formal feeling comes –”

More “After great pain, a formal feeling comes –” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Emily Dickinson Museum — In-depth information about Dickinson's life and poetry from the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts.

  • Emily Dickinson Lexicon — An online dictionary of all of the words in Emily Dickinson’s collected poems, published by Brigham Young University

  • Ada Limón — Watch a video of the contemporary poet Ada Limón reading "After great pain."

  • Emily Dickinson's Letters — An 1891 Atlantic article about the poet's letters by her friend and publisher Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

  • The Poem in Dickinson's Own Hand — An image of the manuscript of "After great pain" from the Emily Dickinson Archives at Harvard University.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Emily Dickinson

  • A Bird, came down the Walk

  • A Light exists in Spring

  • A Murmur in the Trees—to note—

  • A narrow Fellow in the Grass

  • An awful Tempest mashed the air—

  • As imperceptibly as grief

  • A still—Volcano—Life—

  • A Word dropped careless on a Page

  • Because I could not stop for Death —

  • Before I got my eye put out

  • Fame is a fickle food

  • Hope is the thing with feathers

  • I cannot live with You –

  • I cautious, scanned my little life

  • I could bring You Jewels—had I a mind to—

  • I did not reach Thee

  • I died for Beauty—but was scarce

  • I dreaded that first Robin, so

  • I dwell in Possibility –

  • I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

  • If I can stop one heart from breaking

  • I had been hungry, all the Years

  • I have a Bird in spring

  • I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -

  • I like a look of Agony

  • I like to see it lap the Miles

  • I measure every Grief I meet

  • I’m Nobody! Who are you?

  • I started Early — Took my Dog —

  • I taste a liquor never brewed

  • It was not Death, for I stood up

  • I—Years—had been—from Home—

  • Like Rain it sounded till it curved

  • Much Madness is divinest Sense -

  • My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun

  • Nature is what we see

  • One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted

  • Publication — is the Auction

  • Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

  • Shipwreck

  • Success is counted sweetest

  • Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

  • The Brain—is wider than the Sky—

  • The Bustle in a House

  • The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants

  • There came a Wind like a Bugle

  • There is no Frigate like a Book

  • There's a certain Slant of light

  • There's been a Death, in the Opposite House

  • The saddest noise, the sweetest noise

  • The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean

  • The Soul has bandaged moments

  • The Soul selects her own Society

  • The Wind – tapped like a tired Man –

  • They shut me up in Prose –

  • This is my letter to the world

  • This World is not Conclusion

  • 'Twas the old—road—through pain—

  • We grow accustomed to the Dark

  • What mystery pervades a well!

  • Whose cheek is this?

  • Wild nights - Wild nights!