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AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL

FEELING COMES
INTRODUCTION

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In A Nutshell
Did you ever wonder about that weird lady down the street who never leaves her house? Like did you ever think,
"What does she do in there all day? Watch soap operas? Quilt? Torture people in her windowless basement?"
Well, if you happened to live in Amherst, Massachusetts, back in the 19th century, then that weird lady down the
street might have secretly been one of the greatest American poets of all time.
Yup, we're talking about none other than Emily Dickinson.
It's pretty well known that Emily was a total lonerwell not totally, since she kept up with friends and family through a
vigorous letter writing habit. Still, she spent most days in her home or tending the awesome gardens around her
house. All this alone-time gave Emily the space she needed to create 1,775 of some of the greatest American poems
ever.
What's crazy is that she barely tried to get any of these published. Was she shy? Nobody really knows, but it's
probably a good thing. Because she didn't have a bunch of bossy editors trying to rein her in, Emily was able to write
how she wanted to write. When you just so happen to be a genius, this is a very good thing.
"After a great pain, a formal feeling comes" is a poem that has all of Emily's eccentricities on full display. This one
is downright experimental with dense conflicting images and an elastic use of meters. If an editor had seen this one,
he seriously would've flipped out and the world would be short one intensely beautiful poem about the complex
emotions that come after a trauma.
After Emily died in 1886, her sister Lavinia dealt with the trauma of Emily's death by going on a crusade to send her
big sis's poems out into the world. Many of the poems were first published in 1890, but "After a great pain" didn't
see print until a 1929 edition of the Atlantic Monthly. Apparently, an editor saw this one back in 1890, and was like,
"That's just crazy." It took the massive popularity of some Emily's more "accessible" poems to give this beauty a
second glance.

WHY SHOULD I CARE?


Sooner or later, everybody gets a shock. And we're not talking about the kind of shock you get when you try to slide a
Hot Pocket out of the toaster oven with a fork. We're talking about the kind of deep emotional shock that comes when
something seriously bad happens.
Maybe you miss the final shot at the big game even though you're awesome. Or it could be that you discover your
Dad has a secret family in Costa Rica. Or maybe somebody close to you dies.

Whatever it isno matter how huge or minisculethe period of time right after the initial pain can be pretty crappy.
You can feel lost, alone, and totally numb to the world.
Whenever you're feeling like this, "After great pain, a formal feeling comes" is a poem that's there for you. Don't
expect it to be there with sunshine and roses, though. Nah, it's that friend who's there to say, "Look, dude, I know how
you feel." As you read these lines that perfectly capture the conflicted feelings that come after a trauma, you'll know
it's being straight up with you.

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AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL


FEELING COMES: TEXT OF THE
POEM

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After great pain, a formal feeling comes


The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs
The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?
The Feet, mechanical, go round
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone
This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow
First Chill then Stupor then the letting go

AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL


FEELING COMES SUMMARY

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The poem tells us that big traumas are often followed up by periods of numbness. (Is that good or bad? Hard to tell.)
The whole thing is this crazy kaleidoscope of contradictory images. Numb nerves, a confused heart, robot feet,
people dying in the snow all of these images come together to paint a vivid picture of the inner life of somebody
who's totally messed up after experiencing something awful.

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STANZA 1 SUMMARY

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Get out the microscope, because were going through this


poem line-by-line.
Lines 1-2
After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs

Well, at least the first three words aren't that cryptic. The speaker is setting us up to say what happens after
we go through some kind of big trauma.
But what's up with this "formal feeling" thing? Could she be trying to get us to think about how people kind of
suppress emotions on formal occasions like, oh say, a funeral?
That would make sense since a funeral is a formal occasion that happens after a painful event like
somebody dying.

The second line confirms our suspicions with "ceremonious" and "Tombs." These words definitely put us in a
funereal frame of mind.
Notice how the speaker uses personification with "Nerves" by saying they do the human action of sitting.
She then piles a simile on top of the personification when she tells us that they sit "like Tombs."
All of this comes together to describe the "formal feeling" from line 1 and seems to be saying that it's a
feeling of numbness.
Our nerves are what we feel with, right? So if they're like still gravestones, then they're not feeling much at
all.
Add all that up, and it looks like the speaker is saying that after we experience something awful, we go
numb.
On the technical tip, we also notice that these lines are in iambic pentameter. For a thorough breakdown of
what that means for the poem, check out "Form and Meter."
There's also a bunch of sound games going on in these first two lines. For example, we've
got assonance with "great pain" andalliteration with "formal feeling." You'll find much more on these and the
poem's other sonic acrobatics in "Sound Check."

Lines 3-4
The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?

Again, the speaker uses personification on a part of the body. This time it's the Heart, which seems to be
asking a question about who "bore" the "great pain" from line 1.
There's a lot of fuzziness here, though. For one, the poem doesn't make it totally clear who the Heart is
asking about. Is the "He" in line 3 the Heart, itself, or somebody else?
Since the question is in quotes, we might assume that the Heart is referring to another person with "He"
unless the Heart is one of those weirdoes who talks about themselves in the third person.
Especially since "He" is capitalized, many think that the speaker's talking about Mr. Jesus Christ, himself.
It would make sense, not only because Emily's poetry is chock full of Christian imagery, but also because
Jesus is a major symbol of suffering in, oh, all of Western literature.
We also notice that the Heart is described as "stiff," which means it's in the same boat as those numb
Nerves from line 2.
As we get the rest of the Heart's question in 1.4, the fuzziness continues. Not only is the Heart confused
about who bore the pain, it's also a little foggy on when the pain happened. It could've been yesterday, or a
super long time ago.
So if the "He" from line 3 is Jesus, then it makes sense that the pain would've happened a long time ago, but
how could it have been just yesterday? Is the speaker blurring the pain she bore with the pain of Jesus?
Could she be alluding to Jesus to use him as a symbol of the suffering that every human being experiences?
It might be that by blurring time, she's showing how pain happens over and over again throughout the
centuries, and that no matter when it occurs we always feel numb afterward.
Like with any good poem, there's no way pinpoint exactly what these lines mean. All the ambiguity is great
because it helps to get across the confused, discombobulated feeling we have when we're in a state of
shock.
On the technical tip, we also notice that the poem is still in iambic pentameter and also that the last two lines
of the stanza rhyme. (Again, go to "Form and Meter" more than you want to know about that.)

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STANZA 2 SUMMARY

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Get out the microscope, because were going through this


poem line-by-line.
Lines 5-7
The Feet, mechanical, go round
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought

Man, if we thought the first stanza was discombobulating, then this one takes the cake (which is rude
because we were saving the cake for ourselves).
Our best take on these lines is that they're describing the way we walk around like zombies through our
everyday lives after something terrible goes down.
Again, the speaker mentions a part of the bodythis time Feet, which are described as trudging around
mechanically.
So after we go through something bad, the Nerves are numb, the Heart is confused, and the Feet just kind
of phone it in.
In a way, this mechanical foot imagery connects with the deathly imagery from the first stanza. If we move
like machines, then it's like we're only half-alive; we're existing somewhere between life and death.
Line 6 continues to describe this sluggish way of walking by describing it as "Wooden." Feet that are made
of wood probably aren't too good at being feet. They're heavy, cumbersome, and unfeelingooh, we're back
to numbness again.
Of course, the syntax here is confusing, so "Wooden" might not even be directly describing the feet.
"Wooden way" could be describing the path that the mechanical mover is walking down. Still, it seems like
the wood imagery has the same effect; it's a path of dull numbness.
Line 7 throws even more ambiguity our way by questioning if this "Wooden way" is even made of wood.
Maybe it's made of dirtsomething totally solid.
Then again it could be the air we breathesomething totally not solid.
Or it could be "Ought." Wait a sec. What the heck is "Ought"?
Well, "ought" is an auxiliary verb that we use to describe something we're supposed to be doing.
Example: We ought to be writing a paper on Emily Dickinson instead of playing Skyrim right now.
With that in mind, is it possible that the speaker is referencing the way that we numbly slog through our
responsibilities after a big trauma?
We still have to do what we have to do, but in the direct aftermath of awfulness, our everyday lives can
seem totally unreal.

Lines 8-9
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone

Oh boy, more ambiguity.


These last two lines of the stanza seem to be continuing to describe the feelings of confusion and numbness
that the poem's been slathering us with.
"Regardless" can describe something that's done without any attention to what's going on.
Example? Regardless of the fact that there were hungry dogs in pen, Johnny walked in wearing a suit made
of bacon. (Too far?)
So it seems like whatever has "grown" has done so without regard for what's happening around it.
The poem doesn't bother to make it clear what it is that's grown, though. Is it the "Wooden way" from line 6?
Could we be talking about the way a person in shock might walk through their everyday responsibilities
without paying attention to anything around them? There's also just as good of a chance that it's describing
those robot feet from line 5.
It all comes to the same thing no matter how you choose you look at it. The speaker is getting across a
feeling of total disorientation.
"Regardless grown" could even be describing the "Quartz contentment" of line 9.
Whoa, what's "Quartz contentment"? Well, as with everything in this poem it could be a lot of things.
For one, the mention of a stone like quartz reminds us of the "Tombs" from line 2, especially since the
speaker adds the simile"like a stone."
Again, we could be getting at a feeling of deathly numbness that comes when we're in shock.
We also can't help but wonder why the speaker talks about quartz specifically.
Well quartz is kind of crystalline and translucent; if you look through it, you'll get a hazy view of the world,
which totally works with the blurry vision the poem's been painting so far.
It's also interesting that the speaker uses the word "contentment," a word that's usually used to describe
when we're happy and satisfied (like we feel after eating a particularly good lasagna).
Here, the speaker flips the word on its head a bit and uses it to describe the total lack of feeling that can
follow a trauma.
Before we escape this stanza, we'll also point out that the meter has gone bonkers.
Gone are the steady days of iambic pentameter, although we do still end the stanza with a rhyme.
Check out "Form and Meter" for more.

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STANZA 3 SUMMARY

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Get out the microscope, because were going through this


poem line-by-line.
Lines 10-11
This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,

These lines are again getting at a feeling of emotional numbness, and they set us up to think about how we
look back on these times if we manage to make it out alive. Oh, Emily, you always know how to cheer us up.
The mention of lead makes us think of the saying "heavy as lead," so we assume that an "Hour of Lead" is a
period of time when we feel heavy.
Not the sort of heavy we feel after the Holidayswe're talking emotionally heavy, here. Many of us definitely
feel like that when we're in shock, right?
Also, if you ever hear somebody described as "leaden," then that means they're being dull, heavy, or slow.
This idea totally jibes with those mechanical feet from line 5, especially because it uses the image of a
metal.
The image of lead also creates an interesting contrast with the quartz in line 9. While quartz is pretty and
translucent, lead is ugly and opaque. It seems like the speaker just can't get enough of throwing
contradicting images at us.
Once again, it feels like this is purposely done to get across a general sense of disorientation. An "Hour of
Lead" is also contradictory in and of itself. An hour is a unit of time that moves forward, while a lump of lead
stays put.
To us, this communicates the idea that time feels like it's standing still when we're in shock.
Line 11 sets us up to think about how we might look back on this terrible time. Notice, though, that the
speaker doesn't tell us living through this period is a done deal.
She says, "if outlived," and even puts a comma before the "if" to make sure we don't miss it.
Placing a comma in the middle of a line like that creates a bit of a pause called a caesura, and here it puts
neon lights on the fact that survival is not guaranteed.

Lines 12-13
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow
First Chill then Stupor then the letting go

The final lines close out the poem with a simile thatsurprise, surpriseis a little unclear.
The speaker is kicking back to lines 10-11 and telling us that if we manage to survive the period of shock
then remembering it will be the same as how people who freeze to death remember snow.
Question: how do people who've frozen to death remember anything? The simile directly contradicts
"outlived" in line 11.
If somebody experiences "the letting go," (a.k.a. dying) then they haven't outlived anything.
It seems like the speaker is using this contradiction to again put us in a state that's between life and death.
Just like with the tomb-y nerves in the first stanza and the robotic walking in the second, here we're put in a
numb in between place.
The idea of numbness is hammered home by the image of snow. The feeling of freezing to death in a
snowstormthat's gotta be as about as numb as it gets.
Like in 11, the speaker also stops the show with a caesura. In line 12, she puts a comma between "persons"
and "recollect."

There's no grammatical reason for this, but what it does do is put some space between the words.
The final line is caesura'd to the max.
Here, Emily's trademark dashes divide up the line, putting pauses all the way through. All this pausing in the
midst of the line does a great job of slowing the poem down.
This is especially poignant in the last line when the speaker is describing the stages of freezing to death,
which can be a slow process.
Overall, this fracturing of the final lines seems like a great way to end a poem that gives us such a vivid
picture of the fractured consciousness of a person numbly reeling from a big trauma.

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DEATH

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Symbol Analysis
An Emily Dickinson poem with death imagery? Say what?
JK, JK. We are not shocked by this one. Our buddy Emily packed plenty of her poems with images of death. In this
one in particular, however, she might not literally be talking about death, itself. Rather, she's using death to represent
the numb feeling that many of us go through after receiving a major emotional shock. Like, oh, somebody dying.
Crap, now we're back to death again, Emily. Is there any getting around this with you?

Line 2: The speaker uses a simile to compare the "Nerves" to "Tombs." (Man, she really ought to go get that
checked out.) Like most lines in this poem, there's a lot of ways you could interpret this one. On one level,
it's a great way to communicate that awful, numb feeling that happens after a shock. We feel with our
nerves, and if they're tomblike, they're probably not feeling too much at all. The speaker also says that the
nerves "sit ceremonious," which reminds us of the way people sit staring blankly at the deceased during a
funeral.
Line 5: This line might not immediately scream death, but it gives us kind of a zombie feel. The imagery of
somebody walking mechanically, gives us a sense of a person that's almost undead. They're alive in a way,
but they're so numb that they might as well have kicked the bucket. Again, the speaker is using a deathly
image to get across emotional numbness. (Hopefully, Daryl doesn't see this walker. If so, they'll get a
crossbow bolt to the head.)
Lines 10-13: We'll go ahead and talk about the last quatrain all together because the whole thing sets up a
confusing combo centered around death. Basically, it uses a simile to compare the way people will
remember this numb moment to the way people who are freezing to death remember the feel of snow. The
glaring question then becomes this: how do people who've frozen to death remember anything? It seems

like the speaker is setting up a contradiction that again gives us the feeling of someone caught between life
and death.

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ANALYSIS: FORM AND METER

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Emily has tons of fun with meter in this poem. Well, "fun" might not be quite the best way to describe it since the
poem describes the numbness that comes after horrible trauma, but bear with us.
The first quatrain (four-lined stanza) kicks off the poem in a very formal meter: iambic pentameter. Most of Emily's
poems don't use this granddaddy of meters that was the standard for a long time in both poetry and drama. However,
it totally makes sense that Emily would use something so formal here; she's describing a "formal feeling" after all, and
the language draws on images of stiff occasions like funerals (1.1).

Funkifying Form
Of course, even though Emily is using a super formal form, she still gets funky with it. At its most basic, iambic
pentameter is a string of stressed and unstressed syllables called iambs. Usually, they sound like this:
daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM.
Notice how there are five iambs in that line? Yeah, that's where the pentameter part comes from (penta = 5). In this
particular poem, however, Emily doesn't stick with this elementary singsong rhythm. Instead, she changes up the way
the syllables are stressed. Read the first line out loud with us, emphasizing the syllables in bold...
After great pain, a formal feeling comes (1)
Emily starts us off with a trochee, which is an iamb in which the first syllable is stressed rather than the second. So
instead of daDUM, we've got DUMda when we read "After".
Then the next iamb gives us an iamb that's a real DUMDUM. Not because it's stupid, but because both syllables are
stressed when we read "great pain." We figure this is a neat trick that emphasizes the violence of whatever trauma
the speaker went through.
After these first iambs, the poem settles into the standard daDUM cadence with "a formal feeling comes" (1).
Emily keeps getting funky with the rhythm throughout the first quatrain, so even though she's using a formal meter,
she signals right from the start that this ain't your Grandma's poem about trauma. Try going through the rest of the
opening quatrain yourself to figure out how Emily is playing with rhythm.

Free for All

As we get to the second stanza, Emily totally goes off the deep end. We can't even call this one a quatrain because
she throws in a fifth line. Beyond that, she doesn't stick to any kind of formal meter at all. Check it:
This line is in iambic tetrameter because it has four iambs:
The Feet, mechanical, go round (5)
Next we have a two-iambed dimeter line:
A Wooden way (6)
Then we go to a trimeter line with three iambs...
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought (7)
And back to dimeter:
Regardless grown, (8)
And we cap it off with tetrameter:
A Quartz contentment, like a stone (9)
Whoa, Emily. Did you suddenly just stop caring about keeping a steady meter, or is there some point to this? Since
Emily is one of the greatest poets ever, we figure she did this on purpose.
To us, it feels like the fractured, erratic feeling of this stanza does a great job of getting across the confusing emotions
that happen after a person has experienced some kind of trauma. We may look placid and formal on the outside, but
inside we're a total mess.
Emily ends the final quatrain (yep, back to four lines) by going back to iambic pentameter. Check out the last two
lines:
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow
First Chill then Stupor then the letting go (12-13)
So she started off formally, took us through a chaos of emotions, and then brought us back to that "formal feeling"
again (1). It makes so much sense to end here rhythmically because the language is using the image of people
freezing to death to get across this feeling of emotional numbness. The longer lines and steady rhythm give us the
feeling of somebody slowly plodding toward death, or just sitting, staring vacantly, and listening to the beating of their
own heart. (Okay, it's not a picker-upper, but it does a great job of being grim.)
Before we peace out on this one, we should also note that the last two lines of each stanza rhyme. It might seem
crazy that Emily chose such a formal technique for such a technically adventurous poem. But again, this poem is
about a "formal feeling" after all, and the steady rhyme scheme helps knit the whole thing together even when the
poem is seemingly going off the deep end.

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ANALYSIS: SPEAKER

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The speaker is a woman of mystery. In fact, she's so mysterious that she never even tells us if she's a "she." We just
call her "she" because saying "he or she" the whole time is mad clunky. Even though the speaker never tells us who
she is or where she's from, we can definitely make a few assumptions about the sorts of things she's experienced in
life.
For one, we can probably assume that she's gone through some kind of serious trauma. The poem describes in such
detail the complex feelings that wash over somebody in the aftermath of a traumatic event, that we figure there's a
high probability that the speaker has firsthand experience. We mean, just look at how complex this second stanza is:
The Feet, mechanical, go round
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone (5-9)
All this vivid, but fractured imageryit so clearly gives a peek inside the head of somebody who's numb and
confused. The speaker is obviously a deep thinker, who's in touch with her emotions; she's unafraid to dig into all the
contradictions that bubble up inside us when we're in shock.
We never know exactly what kind of trauma the speaker has experienced. All the deathly imagery, like the "Tombs" in
1.2, hint that it might be the death of a loved one, but we never know for sure. The speaker only digs into the emotion
(or lack there of) that comes after. It's cool because it allows us to easily apply this to our own lives. Wait. So does
that mean that we're all the speaker in a way?
Whoa, our minds are blown.

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ANALYSIS: SETTING

Where It All Goes Down


A Broken Kaleidoscope

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The poem never gives us a picture of a specific setting. Instead, we get a whole bunch of pictures of a whole bunch
of settings. It's sort of like we're looking at the world through a broken kaleidoscopeall to take us into the mind of
someone who's reeling from a serious emotional shock.
The poem takes into its weird distorted world right from the get-go. Take the first stanza for example...
After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs
The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'? (1-4)
We see flashes of people sitting numbly after a funeral. We go from eerie graveyards to inside the body itself, where
the nerves are numb and the heart is confused about whom even experienced the pain.
It just gets weirder from here. The second stanza shows us images of a person moving robotically through a world
where there is no definite substance. Everything is dreamlike and uncertain. Then the final stanza ends with the
image of people slowly freezing to death in the snow.
All in all, the poem comes together like a Tim Burton nightmare, and it does a creepily wonderful job of taking us into
the distorted world of a person who's trying to sort out some mega-complex emotions.

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ANALYSIS: SOUND CHECK

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Yeah, we've definitely got sound games in this one. The one we see the most of is probably alliteration, which is the
repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words. The first line has a good example of double Fs:
After great pain, a formal feeling comes (1)
We also can't help but notice that the first line slaps us with someassonance, which is a repetition of vowel sounds
within words. Can you spot it?
Yup, "great pain" repeats the long A sound (1). It's interesting how Emily sets up the two things she's contrastinga
traumatic shock, and the numbness that followswith these sound-y poetic devices. To us, the repetition of the long
A sound gives the reader a feeling of openness of emotion. Your mouth has to be more open to say it, right? Then we
have to press our lips tight for those double Fs, which gives us a sense of closed-off emotions.
The next three lines are shot though with the consonance of repeated S sounds within words. Read it out loud, and
you'll hear it:

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs


The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'
And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'? (2-4)
All these s's give the rest of the quatrain a hissing sound that in our minds makes the whole thing just a wee bit
sinister. This totally helps set an ominous tone that we need when we're talking about pain.
The sound-y devices are a bit more erratic in stanza 2. We've got some alliteration with
"A Wooden way" (6)
And then some alliteration mixed with consonance here:
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought
Regardless grown, (7-8)
Then the last line and the first line are connected with another alliteration/consonance cocktail:
The Feet, mechanical, go round
[...]
A Quartz contentment, like a stone (5, 9)
This somewhat willy-nilly soundscape works great to capture the confused emotions and that the disjointed
images of this stanza gives us. It also jibes perfectly with imperfect meter of the stanza (more on that in
"Form and Meter").
In the final quatrain, we do have some more consonance; every line has at least one word with an L sound:
This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow
First Chill then Stupor then the letting go (10-13)
On the whole, though, Emily lightens up on the sonic devices here. In a way, it feels like she lets the poem
breathe a little more. It doesn't feel as tight sound-wise, which helps to let us feel the freezing people's
gradual relaxation into death. Wow, thanks, Emily; that's just what we wanted to feel right now.

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ANALYSIS: WHAT'S UP WITH


THE TITLE?

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Title? What do you need with a title? Thislike every Dickinson poemis totally title free.

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ANALYSIS: CALLING CARD

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Cap'n Capitalization
You'll find plenty of Emily's greatest hits in this poem. There isas alwaysher use of creative capitalization. One of
our favorite examples is where she capitalizes "Nerves" and "Heart." Here the capitalization seems to help with
the personification that's going onboth of these body parts are given human traits, and capitalizing their names
makes them seem more like people than things.

Dashes on Dashes
Emily is also as dash happy as ever in this poem. Many of the lines are followed by dashes, and she makes it count
where she chooses to leave them out. Take the second stanza for example:
The Feet, mechanical, go round
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone (5-9)
See how leaving out the dash speeds up the rhythm of lines 6 and 8? We wonder if this was meant to give the feeling
of those mechanical feet stumbling forward at an erratic pace.
The last line of the poem also does a cool thing with dashes:
First Chill then Stupor then the letting go (13)
By breaking up the line, Emily slows down the pace, allowing us to feel the slowly beating heart of a person who's
freezing to death. (Not sure if that's what we want to feel right now, but we appreciate the effort.)

Metrical Maiden
Beyond the usual capitalization and dash games that Emily always plays, we also see her getting funky with meter.
She doesn't do this in every single poem, but she's definitely known for being a meter rebel.

You can check out "Form and Meter" for all the deets on this, but the meter highlights from this poem are that it starts
out in standard iambic pentameter for the first stanza, goes all crazy in the middle, then lands us back in pentameter
land at the end. This is really Emily at her meter rebel best, because the shifting meters all jibe perfectly with the
complex images she's throwing at usfrom the stiff "formal feeling" in the first stanza (1), to the chaotic images of the
second, to the slow sinking into death at the end.

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ANALYSIS: TOUGH-O-METER

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(6) Tree Line


Disjointed images, funky meters, cryptic syntax? It's easy to get lost, but we'll be your GPS.

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ANALYSIS: TRIVIA

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Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge


Dickinson used to lower a basket full of gingerbread out of her window for the neighborhood kids. Question: would
your mom have let you accept gingerbread from the weird lady that lived alone? (Source.)

Dickinson's little sister was named Lavinia. Like her sister, Lavinia also lived in relative seclusion and isolation at
home. Lavinia's also the one who made it her mission to get Emily's poems published after she died, so we have her
to thank. (Source.)
In 1856, Dickinson won second place in the Rye and Indian Bread Competition at the annual Cattle Show on the town
common. However, her sister Lavinia was a judge. (Hm, does that count?) (Source.)
Dickinson rarely left Amherst and rarely left her homestead in her later years. However, she wasn't as reclusive as
many people believe; she kept very close correspondence with friends and family. (Source.)
When she was little, Dickinson once wrote, "I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of
Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don't doubt that I will have crowds of admirers at that age." (This fact makes us
feel a little sad.) (Source.)

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ANALYSIS: STEAMINESS
RATING

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Exactly how steamy is this poem?


G
Our speaker is way too traumatized to think about sex.

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AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL


FEELING COMES THEME OF
SUFFERING

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"After great pain, a formal feeling comes" doesn't give us a scream-y, whiny version of suffering. Instead, it delves
into what it's like after we've experienced a major pain. Sometimes this includes physical pain, but it seems like the
poem is a lot more concerned with pain that's emotional. After an emotional trauma, many of us can feel numb, and
the poem captures that beautifullyif you can call it beautiful at all. The poem's disjointed images take us to that
dark, numb place where our bodies might not even feel like our own. This is a poem for those who know what it's like
to silently suffer after all the screaming is done.

Questions About Suffering


1.
2.
3.

What is the difference between the "great pain" the poem describes and the "formal feeling" that comes
after?
What images of suffering strike you the most in the poem? Why those?
Do you think line 3 alludes to the suffering of Jesus? Why, or why not?

Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devils advocate.
The poem shows that the emotional numbness that follows a trauma can be just as traumatic as the original event.
The poem uses images of physical numbness to describe emotional pain.

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AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL


FEELING COMES THEME OF
MEMORY AND THE PAST

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The speaker of "After great pain, a formal feeling comes" definitely doesn't have a crystal clear memory of her past.
She spends the whole poem looking back on a past trauma with blurry eyes. (Guess her health insurance doesn't
include visual.) The pain that she suffered isn't in focus for her at all; she even seems to be not so sure about what
exactly happened. Instead, it's kind of a dull ache that makes her feel numb toward the present, past, and future.
Throughout, the poem sets up weird dislocations in time that make us feel disoriented. We're never quite sure where
one moment begins and another ends.

Questions About Memory and the Past


1.
2.
3.

Why do you think the speaker chooses to blur time in the poem?
How does the poem show the past controlling the present actions of the speaker?
Why do you think the poem starts off with clearer delineations between past and present, but then gets
mushier along the way?

Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devils advocate.
The poem shows how hard it is to live with the memory of a traumatic event.
The poem blurs the lines between past and present to place the reader in the shoes of a person who is disoriented
and confused.

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AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL


FEELING COMES THEME OF
DEATH

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Emily is no stranger to the theme of death; we're guessing they're BFFs since the theme comes to hang out in so
many of her poems. In "After great pain, a formal feeling comes," the theme stops by to kick it in a few different ways.
Mostly deathly images are used to represent the numb feeling that we often have after we've dealt with a horrific
event. The poem uses conflicting images to show how sometimes we can feel dead even while we're still alive and
kicking. Also, because the poem is so loaded with morbid imagery, our minds definitely go to the idea that the painful
event in the past was the death of someone close.

Questions About Death


1.
2.
3.

What typical symbols of death are found in the poem? Are there any atypical ones? Or does Dickinson
manage to put a spin on the old ones in any way?
How does the poem blur the lines between life and death? How does this connect to the larger meaning of
the poem?
What emotional state does death represent in the poem?

Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devils advocate.
The speaker is clearly trying to get over a recent death in her life.
The poem uses deathly imagery to evoke the sense of numbness we sometimes feel after a horrific event.

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AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL


FEELING COMES SUFFERING
QUOTES
See more famous quotes from poetry

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1
How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1

After great pain, a formal feeling comes (1)


The opening line contrasts two different kinds of suffering. First, there's the more obvious one: "the great pain," which
is whatever the initial trauma is. Then comes the more insidious pain: the "formal feeling," which is the numbness that
happens once the original trauma has passed. The speaker does such a great job of describing the torture of this
numbness, we almost wonder if it's worse than the original trauma, itself. What do you think?
Suffering
Quote #2

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs


The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,' (2-3)
These lines personify two parts of the body: nerves and heart. We see that the kind of suffering the speaker is talking
about isn't physical pain. The nerves are so out of it that they're like tombs, and the heart isn't even sure who felt the
pain. There's also a lot ofambiguity around the "He" in line 3. Is the Heart referring to itself? Or is it maybe talking
about Jesus? The capitalized H in "He" has made a bunch of scholarly types think the latter is true. If so, it only opens
up a lot more questions. Is it Jesus that now feels numb? Is it somebody now feeling numb over the suffering of
Jesus? Or is the speaker using Jesus as symbol for the suffering of us all? Thanks, Emily; now we're going to be up
all night thinking about that.
Suffering
Quote #3

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow


First Chill then Stupor then the letting go (12-13)
Again we have another image of numb sufferingthis time it's of people slowly freezing to death. (Cheery as always,
Emily.) One of the things that strikes us the most here is the image of snow falling on the freezing people. Emily

could've chosen something hard and sharp like sleet, but instead she gives the image of soft snow. In some ways,
the subtleness makes it more sinister. This is the kind of suffering that creeps up on you before it drags you down.
Suffering

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AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL


FEELING COMES MEMORY AND
THE PAST QUOTES
See more famous quotes from poetry

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1
How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1

After great pain, a formal feeling comes (1)


When the poem first revs up, we have a very clear idea of past and present. The speaker is clearly talking about how
we can feel numb in the present after something horrible happened in the past. It's cool how the poem starts off with
so much definition, but then gets blurrier as it moves on.
Memory and the Past
Quote #2

The stiff Heart questions 'was it He, that bore,'


And 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'? (3-4)
These lines make things blurry in lots of ways. First, it's unclear if the "He" that's referred to is the Heart, itself, or
Jesus, or maybe even some other person the speaker knows but doesn't bother to name. On top of that, the speaker
seems unsure if the traumatic thing happened yesterday or a super long time ago. If whatever she's talking about
happened "Centuries before," then it's pretty unlikely that it happened to the speaker herself. Could she be referring

to some event in all of humanity's past? Could this line be digging into the whole idea of collective memory
somehow?
Memory and the Past
Quote #3

This is the Hour of Lead


Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow (10-12)
We've got two words in these lines that directly reference memory: "Remembered" in line 10 and "recollect" in line 12.
What's weird about these lines is how they dislocate us in time. The first is pretty straightforward and references how
we remember some period of numbness if we manage to make it through without dying. It gets messier with the
second one, though. If a person were currently "Freezing," then why would they even need to "recollect the snow"?
Wouldn't it still be snowing? It seems like these lines purposely blur the lines between past and present to get across
the total disorientation that happens when we're still reeling from some painful event.
Memory and the Past

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AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL


FEELING COMES DEATH
QUOTES
See more famous quotes from poetry

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1
How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1

After great pain, a formal feeling comes


The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs (1-2)

The words "ceremonious" and "Tombs" evoke the idea of a funeral and give us the feeling of what it's like to feel dead
while we're still alive. When we're sitting around depressed at a funeral, we can definitely feel that way. Notice that
the speaker describes something that's part of a living body"the Nerves"in these funereal terms. At first this
contradiction may not line up in our head, but when we think about it for a sec, we see how it captures that dead-alive
feeling perfectly.
Death
Quote #2

A Quartz contentment, like a stone (9)


This one might not be the most obvious reference to death, but the image seems a little death-y to us. What could be
more content than a stone? And when are we more content than when we're dead? This line also reminds us of the
"Tombs" back in line 2, even though we've never seen a gravestone made of quartz. Why do you think the speaker
chooses to reference quartz specifically here? What's significant about this particular type of stone?
Death
Quote #3

This is the Hour of Lead


Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow
First Chill then Stupor then the letting go (10-13)
It's weird that the poem references people who have died from freezing to death as being able to remember the snow
that killed them. Kind of hard to remember stuff when you're dead, right? Here's another way of looking at it, though:
what if "the letting go" is meant to represent the moment in which we finally get over a trauma? Though it's the death
of one part of our lives, it's also the birth of another.
Death

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AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL


FEELING COMES QUESTIONS

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Bring on the tough stuff - theres not just one right answer.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

What kind of traumas do you think the speaker might have experienced? What makes you say so?
What is the point of all the contradictions and ambiguity in the poem?
Do you think the speaker views the "formal feeling" as good, bad, or somewhere in between? Why do you
think so?
How does the poem's constantly shifting meter affect its tone?
Which do you think is the most powerful symbol in the poem? Really? Why that one?

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