Edward Estlin Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 14, 1894. He earned a BA from Harvard and volunteered to go to France during World War I with the Ambulance Corps. After the war, he stayed in Paris, writing and painting, and later returned to the US. He died in Conway, New Hampshire, in 1962. Cummings is one of the most innovative contemporary poets, he used unconventional punctuation and capitalization, and unusual line, word, and even letter placements - namely, ideograms. Cummings' most difficult form of poetry is probably the ideogram; it is extremely terse and it combines both visual and auditory elements. There may be sounds or characters on the page that cannot be verbalized or cannot convey the same message if pronounced and not read. Four of Cummings' poems "la," "mortals," "!blac," and "swi" illustrate the ideogram form quite well. Cummings utilizes unique syntax in these poems in order to convey messages visually as well as verbally.
Although one may think of 'la" as a poem of sadness and loneliness, Cummings probably did not intend that. This poem is about individuality - oneness. The theme of oneness can be derived from the numerous instances and forms of the number '1' throughout the poem. First, "la" contains both the number 1 and the singular indefinite article, 'a'; the second line contains the French singular definite article, 'le'; 'll' on the fifth line represents two ones; 'one' on the 7th line spells the number out; the 8th line, 'l', isolates the number; and 'iness', the last line, can mean "the state of being I" - that is, individuality - or "oneness", deriving the "one" from the lowercase roman numeral 'i'.
Cummings could have simplified this poem dras...
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...ould contradict 'swi/ftly', so Cummings decided to refer to the speed average of the two, 'Swi/mming.' "Swi" contains less symbolism than the other poems being analyzed, but it is similar in that the syntax adds greatly to the poem.
Cummings' peculiar method of using syntax to convey hidden meaning is extremely effective. The reader does not simply read and forget Cummings' ideas; instead, he must figure out the hidden meaning himself. In doing this, he feels contentment, and thus retains the poem's idea for a more extended period of time. Cummings' ideogram poems are puzzles waiting to be solved.
*This paper is not allowed to be copied yet ideas can be taken from this paper. Plagerism is a crime!
Bibliography:
Book Used:
Wegner, Robert E. The Poetry and Prose of E. E. Cummings. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1965.
...This poem represents one of e.e Cummings experiments with rhymed couplets. The names Maggie, Milly, Molly, and May could very well be representing four girls. Also, Cummings work has always encountered divergent criticisms.
He uses powerful imagery and onomatopoeia to achieve the desired effects that make the poem more realistic. All this combined together produces effective thought provoking ideas and with each read, I gradually get an improved understanding and appreciation of the poem.
Edward Estlin Cummings, commonly referred to as E. E. Cummings, was born on October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a source of vast knowledge and was responsible for many creative works other than his poetry, such as novels, plays, and paintings. He published his first book of poetry Tulips and Chimneys in 1923. Many of his poems are known for the visual effects they create through his unusual placement of words on the page, as well as, his lack of punctuation and capitalization. The manner in which Cummings arranges the words of his poems creates an image in the reader's mind of the topic he is discussing, such as a season or climbing stairs. His visual style also brings emotions, such as loneliness or cheerfulness, to the reader's mind. Due to this creativity, Cummings won many awards, such as the National Book Award and the Bollingen Prize in poetry (Marks 17).
In the poem “Anyone lived in a pretty how town”, E. E. Cummings’ use of structure contributes to the grateful, touched but also sombre mood, which reveals that we must live life to its fullest rather than living with no purpose because death is prominent and cannot be avoided. This is evident in the overall structure and spacing of the poem, as it is unique compared to E. E. Cummings’ other poems. The form and spacing of “Anyone lived in a pretty how town” is quite consistent, as it has been divided into nine even stanzas of four lines each, creating the effect that the “pretty how town” (Line 1) is quite regular and ordinary in everyday life. The fact that this “pretty how town” is just a regular, ordinary town, represents that residents would
Lord, John B. "Para-Grammatical Structure in a Poem of E. E. Cummings." Pacific Coast Philology 1
Allison, Barrows, Blake, et al. eds. The Norton Anthology Of Poetry . 3rd Shorter ed. New York: Norton, 1983. 211.
old them into the person that they become and instead that the troubles of each individual over time mold them into who they are. Through the use of repetition and oxymoron, E.E. Cummings establishes a bittersweet relationship between all of life’s virtues and vices.
“Humanity i love you” makes its first impression with its unconventional use of capitalization, or rather, the distinct lack of, which aids Cummings in his manipulation of emphasis. All words, most recognizably “I”, are in lowercase, as presented in the title of the poem. This is a common fixture of E.E. Cummings’ works, and it has been speculated that such a choice was a mark of humility on Cummings’ part in order to show that the authority of the poet isn’t as important as the words themselves. However, in this case it seems that Cummings has manipulated the continued use of the lowercase “i” in order to bring forth the only word that does happen to be capitalized: Humanity. The noticeable emphasis that this places on the word immediately pulls the word from its su...
He uses words and punctuation to make patterns. In Document A, we see that the lettering is made to go up and down and the word loneliness is separated by “a leaf falls,” “l” is left at the top of the poem while the rest of the word “oneliness” falls down to the bottom of the poem, as if a leaf was in reality falling from a tree. Lettering and punctuation are also used in Document B in the poem "r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r". Cummings makes steps with his words to portray the stages of a man adapting to his new life. The steps remind you of the ups and downs of life with the occasional bumps in the road that lead us off track once in a while. In Document C, the poem “In Just,” is a depiction of childhood slipping away from us. “The balloonman whistles far and wee” means that childhood is leaving and getting further and further away from sight. As the structure of “the balloonman whistles far and wee” changes it’s presenting us an illustration of the man
The poem uses a double meaning of several words such as feeling, kiss and as a word play on the word wholly. Rather than the physical act of feeling, touching requires thought to identify an object, but instead feeling conveys emotion. This is significant since the poem iterates several times not to dwell too much. Instead acquiesce to fate since as Cummings stated life’s not just a section or part of a thought.
“[S]omewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond/ any experience,your eyes have their silence: / in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, / or which i cannot touch because they are too near” (Cummings 742). In the first verse Cummings presents meter, but discontinues this method in the next four verses. When metering the first verse, it sets it apart, --like an introduction to a story-- laying down a path to the rest of the poem. Reading from one verse to the next, we see Cummings’ love for another become unraveled piece by tantalizing piece. His thoughts begin to break down into open words on the page, but still remain embodied within a quatrain structure. Perhaps telling us his love is uncontrolled, but composed.
The poem “the greedy the people” by e e cummings is extremely complex in structure. Each of its five stanzas is composed of six lines that seem to follow a similar pattern with a rhyme scheme of ABCBAC that is made up of both slant and perfect rhymes; however, the poem is free verse in terms of meter. It does follow a pattern where the first line talks about a group of people and is emphasized with a rhyme, alliteration, or assonance; for example: “the timid the tender” is the first line of the last stanza and contains alliteration. The second line of each stanza is a simile that is put in parenthesis and compares antonyms, such as doubt and trust, or all and each. The last line of each stanza is made up of two words and the last words of each stanza are the only capitalized words in the entire poem. Cummings’ choice of breaking the rules of capitalization shows his rebellious disposition toward traditional writing and gives him a childlike persona and although there is a lacking of imagery in Cummings’ writing, his cynical tone is displayed through this persona, where his judgments ...
E.E.Cummings regards on the Humanity we live inE. E.Cummings helps people realize the true reasons why he loves our humanity in terrible ways. Cummings will explain his views in sarcastic ways for readers to understand. Cummings also explain his opinions in the time period of where everything was hype. Those results in Cummings use of sarcasm to say that the time period that we live in will lead to the destruction of our humanity.
When you first read this poem is hard to understand the reason of this type of writing. Cummings did not use any periods, commas, or colons to create pauses. However, the use of some words and the way they are place in each line makes a clear understanding of what his poem is referring to. For example, he opens his poem with quotations marks, the reader can get confused at first, but at the end of the poem we realized that is a speech. Cummings did not punctuate his poems to emphasize the tone of the speaker. The speaker is opposing patriotism and is trying to convince others to see America the way is: people killing each other for liberty. Cummings also adds the compound word “deafanddumb” this can help the reader know that it’s only one word to say “everyone”, but using that makes the poem more interesting. By the end of this poem, Cummings closes with the line “He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water” Can you see how he uses the white space again? This help the reader pause and think about what he just read and relate it to the speech being told. The last part of this line tells the reader that the speaker used most of his voice and probably was yelling because of the need of
Through alliteration and imagery, Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that become unfixed to the reader. Coleridge uses alliteration throughout the poem, in which the reader “hovers” between imagination and reality. As the reader moves through the poem, they feel as if they are traveling along a river, “five miles meandering with a mazy motion” (25). The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene that the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the r...