Journal #5 Emily Dickinson: The Potential of the Brain!

QUOTE:

“The Brain is deeper than the sea - / For – hold them – Blue to Blue - / The other one will absorb - / As Sponges – Buckets – do –“ (Dickinson 632).


SUMMARY:

This quote seems to be Dickinson explaining that the brain is able to absorb the whole entire sea. The rest of the poem is also about the brain having the most capacity.


RESPONSE:

I had to write about another “brain” quote since Dickinson seems to know about the enormous amount of potential the human brain actually has. Ever since I’ve experienced first hand how the brain can recover from injury, I know that the potential for the brain is all about building connections. The coolest thing about the brain is that it can always build new connections, which can help make up for lost or damaged connections. I’m not really sure if that much was known about the brain in 1863, and even if doctors and scientists did know what is known now, it seems very intelligent for Dickinson to write about it.

She definitely seems like a woman in love with her own brain, and especially because she never really left her room! I think a lot of people who can spend most of their time alone are usually very imaginative, which means they use their brains a lot too. I wonder if a lot of Dickinson’s ideas for her poetry came from random thoughts that entered her brain, and especially the ideas for all of her poems about death and being dead. I guess all of those poems make me think of Dickinson having many daydreams about her own death or being dead. She kind of sounds morbid in most of those poems, but morbid works for a lot of people! I’m not sure if I necessarily enjoy that type of poetry, but I can appreciate her skill and her approach in all of her poems. I know that my favorite poems of hers now will be the “brain poems!”