 |
|
Parallelism, deviation and 'The Brain - is wider than the Sky -'
Below is a poem by the C19 American poet, Emily Dickinson  .
We are going to carry out a number of tasks to analyse this poem, one
aspect at a time.
The Brain - is wider than the Sky -
For - put them side by side -
The one the other will contain
With ease - and You - beside -
The Brain is deeper than the sea -
For - hold them - Blue to Blue -
The one the other will absorb -
As Sponges - Buckets do -
The Brain is just the weight of God -
For - Heft them - Pound for Pound -
And they will differ - if they do -
As Syllable from Sound -
(Emily Dickinson, c. 1892)
Though fairly simple in structure, the poem explores a serious matter.
But for a bit of fun we have also produced a rough visual version of each
stanza when you get to the semantic analysis of it. As you go through
the process of reading the poem and then analysing it, one aspect at a
time, you will be practising the sort of research you would need to do
to perform a complete stylistic analysis of a poem. So this work counts
as practice for your coursework assessment.
Note that we will go through the various linguistic levels of the poem
in an order which goes from most meaningful to least meaningful, as it
is easier to relate the less meaningful aspects of language (e.g. orthography,
and phonetic structure) to our understanding of the poem after we have
looked at the more directly meaningful levels.
|
