Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems
How would you summarise the Emily Dickinson poem, 'After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes'?
Comments on images and structure would help.
Comments on images and structure would help.
Here is a solid analysis:
"Dickinson is an astute student of human psychology and responses; her range may be narrow, but it is profound. Dickinson brilliantly recreates the suffering we undergo after some terrible, excruciating event in our lives . . . She traces the numbness experienced after some terrible blow. Is numbness one way we protect ourselves against the onrush of pain and against being overwhelmed by suffering? . . . Just as a dangerous surge of electricity will trip a circuit breaker and cut off the electricity, so a surge of anguish will trip our emotional 'circuit breaker' temporarily, so that we don't feel the pain."
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/formal.html