Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Brain – is wider than the sky- ” focuses on the power of the brain and how the human mind is capable of conceptualizing almost anything. The speaker of the poem says the brain itself is larger and broader than the sky itself metaphorically to imply that our brain can do anything it sets its mind to. In my opinion, what makes this piece of writing “literature” is Dickinson’s use of the literal device. In the poem, she uses metaphor, simile, and parallelism making her poem stand out more to the reader. For example, In the poem, Dickinson uses metaphor to make a comparison between the sky and the brain. In the second stanza, Dickinson compares the brain to a sponge ‘As sponges, – buckets – do’ which indicates the use of simile. And these are some of the features of the poem that jump out at me as being important to the question of ‘” what is literature,” asked by Jonathan Culler. According to Culler, literature is more than just the written word, and the quality and unique structure of literature make it recognizable. And in my view, the poem ” The Brain – is wider than the sky- ” by Emily Dickinson has great quality, and the poem itself is very clear. Yes, there are aspects of literature that Culler describes that I see in the poem I’ve chosen. The poem rhymes, and followed a rhythmic pattern of repetition and a series of stressed and unstressed syllables or meter which makes it literature. For example,

‘The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—.’

Therefore, I would say this poem is a great example of literature.