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Parallelism, deviation and 'The Brain - is wider than the Sky -'
Our answer for task E - Orthographic structure
The arrangement of the page into stanzas (with line initial capitals,
four lines which do not extend to the right-hand margin and spaces between
the stanzas) reinforces the parallelisms noted at all the other levels.
In addition to that, Emily Dickinson uses a system of capitalisation,
common in earlier centuries, to highlight important words in her text.
Note how this brings out equivalences between the two parts of the unusual,
and so already foregrounded structures 'Blue to Blue'
and 'Pound to Pound'. In addition, the fact that 'Brain'
is capitalised as well as God helps us to see them as equivalent, and
the same point is even more true of 'Syllable' and
'Sound' because the capital used is identical. 'You'
is also foregrounded through the initial capitalisation, and the contrast
between the two different container modes for 'Sponges'
and 'Buckets' is also made more dramatic in this way.
Note here that we have not commented on every capitalisation, but only
those which seem particularly relevant to our overall interpretation of
the poem. In general, it is important to note that stylistic analysis
uses linguistic analysis but does not necessarily comment on every linguistic
detail. Instead, it reserves comment for those linguistic features which
are stylistically relevant (relevant to style, meaning and/or effect).
Another significant orthographic factor in this poem is the use of dashes
to replace more traditional orthographical markings like commas, semi-colons,
full stops and so on. This is typical of the writings of Emily Dickinson,
and so can be said to be a part of her distinctive style. They also appear
to be used to indicate how to group words together in spoken readings
of the poem. So, for example, the fact that the word 'Brain'
is followed by a dash in line 1 of the poem would lead most people to
pause slightly after it, or perhaps to lengthen its pronunciation when
reading the poem aloud, thus giving the phrase 'The Brain'
particular emphasis at the beginning of the poem. It is interesting to
note that this device is absent in the equivalent place in the other two
stanzas. On the other hand, the conditional clause in line 2 of each stanza
(and the extra conditional in line 3 of the last stanza) are all marked
off by dashes, thus helping us to perceive the grammatical structure more
easily as well as to mark those parts off in spoken readings of the poem.
A Final Comment
We have taken you through this poem rather painstakingly, a linguistic
level at a time, in order to help you to see how to build up a stylistic
analysis of a complete text. In each case we have provided some analysis
and then related it to the overall interpretation we started off with,
thus specifying it in more detail (i.e. making the interpretation richer)
as we have gone along. We will not bother to make any concluding interpretative
comments at this point. But it is worth noting that if you were writing
up a stylistic analysis as an essay you would need not just to keep relating
your analysis of specific levels back to your starting remarks (and perhaps
modifying them in the light of the evidence you find). You would also
need to provide some concluding remarks, summarising how the analysis
you had undertaken related to your interpretation of the poem overall.
If you read published stylistic analyses of whole poems you will see what
we mean.
References:
If you want to look at some stylistic analyses of whole poems, try:
Carter, Ron (1993) 'Between Languages: Grammar and lexis in Thomas Hardy's
"The Oxen"'. In P. Verdonk (ed.) Twentieth Century Poetry:
From Text to Context, Routledge, pp. 57-65.
Nash, Walter (1993) 'The Lyrical Game: C. Day Lewis's "Last Words"'.
In P. Verdonk (ed.) Twentieth Century Poetry: From Text to Context,
Routledge, pp. 46-56.
Rodger, Alex (1982) '"O Where Are You Going?": A suggested
experiment in classroom stylistics'. In R. Carter (ed.) Language and
Literature, Routledge, pp. 122-61.
Short, Mick (1993) ‘To Analyse a Poem Stylistically’: “To
Paint a Water Lily” by Ted Hughes’. In P. Verdonk (ed.) Twentieth
Century Poetry: From Text to Context, Routledge, pp. 7-20.
Short, Mick (1996) Exploring the Language of Poems, Prose and Plays,
London: Longman, pp. 16-27.
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