What does Emily Dickinson mean when she writes, "the brain is wider
than the sky"?
Emily Dickinson’s Poem #632 seems
to revolve around the human mind as its theme. The first stanza, after which
the poem is commonly titled, is what instantly drew my eyes to this poem. “The
Brain – is wider than the Sky…” she writes, “For
– put them side by side – the one the other will contain…” These two lines at
first seem vague.
However, after a moment or two of
pondering, you can make some sense of this introduction. The Brain indeed
contains a great many thoughts and memories, and if you were to think of the
Sky as some very inestimable thing, which it certainly is, then these two lines
make sense as a sort of analogy.
The next two lines of the poem make a
lot more sense once the first two are understood in that way. Dickinson writes
that one will contain the other “With
ease – and You – beside.”
Her use of the second person is meant to draw the reader in to this very
interesting subject in a personal way. Essentially, the Brain is a vast thing
that contains one’s essence (You), and as this first
stanza would lead you to assume, the Brain must be a vast, inestimable thing
like the Sky.
The second stanza is actually a bit
clearer than the first. “The
Brain is deeper than the sea,” Dickinson writes. The following three lines are
written quite unconventionally. Essentially, she goes on to discuss that the
Brain can absorb the sea like a sponge. The ambiguous part of the stanza is the
last line which contains the word “Buckets.”
That wasn’t
so clear to me at first, especially in terms of a “bucket
full” being a rather unconventional and imprecise measurement in terms of the
brain absorbing information.
My professor at the time I first
engaged with this poem remarked that Dickinson seemed to be suggesting the
variety of ways the Brain takes in information; after all, the poet uses the
phrase “inestimable
essences.” The sponge concept is easily
decipherable, however. One possible interpretation of this stanza could be that
the Brain can absorb an absolutely tremendous volume of things – speaking very
highly of the human mind. In the case of my own brain, which is perhaps too
spongy, this makes perfect sense to me.
The last stanza is
a bit head-scratching. The first line of the last stanza, “The
Brain is just the weight of God,” is absolutely mystifying. The final three
lines of the poem are something to the effect that if you were to somehow lift
the weight of God and the Brain side-by-side that they will differ somehow. “If
they do,” Dickinson writes, “[then
they will differ] as Syllable from Sound.” I truly don’t understand the
analogy between those two. It certainly sounds good, and there is meaning
behind it to be sure; it’s just uncertain to me what that
purpose is, especially with the instability in the construction of the stanza.
This poem would seem to be among the
least frustrating of Dickinson’s poems to understand. With their
brevity, one would think that you would not have to look long at them to derive
their meanings. But, their appearance certainly belies their complexity. As for
a main theme, Poem #632 would seem to speak highly of the vastness of the human
Brain.
Were it to be rewritten with more
conventional poetic rules in effect, the poem may make more sense. Then again,
through forced revision, many of the mystifying aspects of the poem would
necessarily be lost. This poem’s strangeness, its elusive qualities,
and lack of conventional structure are trademarks of many Emily Dickinson
poems.
By not following standard poetic
conventions, Dickinson writes many interesting, deep, and thoughtful pieces.
Poem #632 just happens to be the one that appeared to be most accessible to me
when choosing a Dickinson poem for the particular assignment from which this
analysis sprang. Of course, the very thing that caught my eye were the first
two words of the poem, “The
Brain…”
~ Amelia Desertsong
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