Topic 3 (session B) - Patterns, Deviations, Style and Meaning > Parallelism, deviation & 'The Brain - is wider than the Sky -' > Task A - general understanding

Parallelism, deviation and 'The Brain - is wider than the Sky -'

Task A - general understanding

We would like you to read the poem two or three times and summarise in a couple of sentences how you understand it. You can then compare your general understanding with ours before going on to look at different aspects of the poem's linguistic structure in turn.

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)

Our summary

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