TP-CASTT
Put the correct term from the word bank method into the correct blank.
Word Bank: Paraphrase, Connotation, Title, Title, Shifts, Attitude, Theme
Examine the title again, this time on an interpretive level.____Title
Translate the poem into your own words.____Paraphrase
Determine what the poet is saying.____Theme
Observe both the speaker's and the poet's attitude (tone).____Attitude
Note shifts in speakers and in attitudes.____Shifts
Ponder the title before reading the poem.____Title
Contemplate the poem for meaning beyond the literal.____Connotation
Take out a sheet of paper. Read the poem by Emily Dickinson and analyze it based on the TPCASTT method.
"After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes"
After great pain, a formal feeling comes--
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Toombs--
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round--
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought--
A Wooden way
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--
Title-The words "pain" and "feeling" stick out in the title. What is the great pain being discussed? Is it physical or emotional?
Paraphrase-Time will help us recover from the painful event; time will also give us a better perspective of the pain. Tragedy is a numbing occurrence, but people go on with their routines. If you survive the pain, then you can remember how painful it was.
Connotation- Every stanza has figurative language in it. The second line in the poem is a simile and personification. The nerves are compared to a tomb, which would be a house for the body, and they sit, which gives them human characteristics. Line three personifies heart. Stanza two illustrates a simile "A Quartz contentment, like a stone." The last stanza suggests "Freezing persons recollect." When people freeze, it is at first painful, but then they lose the sense of it before they die. "The hour of Lead" suggests the hour before letting go or dying. Each stanza ends with a rhyming couplet for its last two lines. This focuses on the end, or rather death.