Anthony Rivas 1-22-11 Period 6 Emily Dickinson Essay Emily Dickinson changed the face of American poetry with

her powerful poems. Her style of writing exhibited a character not yet seen in other poets. Her understanding of abstract notions and her ability to convey this knowledge through poetry gave her an ability bound by no one. She could find the nature in the most human of objects and link it to faith and to God through her poetry. In Emily Dickinsons poem, The Brainis wider than the sky, she compares the human brain to the sky, the sea, and to God. Now, the two ways of understanding this poem are literally understanding the brain as the anatomical gray matter that resides in our skulls and controls our movements or the mind: the ideas, concepts, and dreams that let us imagine beyond the cosmos and infinitely further. The first comparison, The Brainis wider than the sky, shows us that the literal translation of the poem must be incorrect. The anatomical brain only weighs 3 pounds and is less than a quarter of a cubic meter. The mind, however, spans time and space itself. Wherever and whenever we can imagine ourselves, we can be there. We can easily be flying through the skies or at the bottom of the ocean in our dreams, and this gift is given to us in our mind. If you try to hold the sky to ones mind, the mind will clearly overshadow it. Not only is the mind greater in scale and density, but also the sky is transparent and easily searched through. To search ones minds for answers or peace could take years, decades, or even an entire lifetime, and even then, one might not find it in the depths of the mind.

If you put ones mind next to the entirety of the ocean, 71 percent of the entire worlds surface, the mind would clearly outreach the sea, so much so, that the mind could absorb the ocean in pondering its depths and the creatures that lurk within it. 95 percent of the sea floor remains unexplored. Who knows what amazing creatures and structures could lay at the bottom of such an expansive liquid? Just thinking about it is enough to set the mind ablaze with wild ideas and designs for glorious creatures and unfathomable depths, which is why the mind could so easily absorb the sea. In Dickinsons last comparison, she says The Brain is just the weight of God. At first, this line almost sounds like blasphemy, as if Dickinson is trying to say that the mind created the all powerful creator that is God. But on second thought, she might be saying that something as expansive and powerful as the mind can only be created by God. This amazing expanse of power we obtain from using our minds is just a fraction of the power the power God has in crafting all of us. For all that we know, God could have dreamed all of our personalities and characters into the universe and planted us on Earth to interact with one another, each possessing a tiny fraction of the mind He is using. Dickinson says to heft the weight of mind and God to determine that the difference is that As syllable from sound: another line to ponder. At first thought, the two are equal: Syllable = Sound. But it really takes the pronunciation of a word to hear the sound of it to determine the syllable: Sound > Syllable :: God > Man In Emily Dickinsons poem, The Wind begun to knead the Grass, both literal and figurative meanings could be understood readily. Ignoring all hints of a deeper meaning, this poem explains all the parts of a bad storm on the land around her fathers house. Thrown grass, flying cows, unsettled dust, angry lightning, vulnerable animals, and a downpour all signified

this terrible act of nature. At the end, however, the house was untouched and the only scar left behind was the tree that was quartered. Looking at the poem figuratively, however, it takes on a whole different meaning. The forces causing the storm are no longer ugly, destructive actions, but they take personality and work together in a perfect union to show the beauty of nature. The wrath of Lightning, the pride of Thunder, the greed of Wind, the sloth of Rain; all distinct virtues, yet work together to create a deadly forecast. This is not than a natural storm but a spiritual one. Each characteristic doing a different type and different amount of damage, all coming together in a forceful rage to demolish Gods kingdom for her. This personal or spiritual crisis she went through came dangerously close to severing her ties with God. Dickinson almost lost faith in God but in the end, Gods house survived, untouched by these rabid emotions. The only sign of the storm that passed is a tree quartered, a horrible scar left for nature to heal and rebuild. Emily Dickinson showed amazing knowledge with these poems about faith, world-wide and personal. Although a little tough to find, the inner meanings of her poems strike at core virtues in the Catholic faith and show that with God, anything is possible. Dickinson also shows that anywhere you choose to look is nature in full abundance: its beauty, glory, and unsurpassed power ready to be found at any waking moment. Words: 897