An Interpretation of My Sweet Old Etcetera by E.E. Cummings'
"my sweet old etcetera" is part of E.E. Cummings' "is 5" collection of poetry, which was published in 1926. This poem and most of Cummings' other poetry was known for its typographic innovation. One will definitely notice that there are only two capitalized letters in the whole piece and not one period. The only punctuation mark present is the comma, creating pauses in the speech. Basically the whole poem is a big run-on sentence. "my sweet old etcetera" was written, as well as most of Cummings' other poetry, to have visual effectiveness and content as well as literary effectiveness and content. After all Cummings was a painter and an artist. He wanted people see the poetry, not just read it.
In order to understand what the poem is all about, one might rewrite it and break it up into readable, complete sentences. One must also place appropriate syntax and punctuation where it needs to be. Of course, one has to remove all of the "etcetera"s in order to make a sentence that makes sense. I believe that this is a story in which E.E. Cummings is telling. It is about an experience he is having while at war and how it is effecting his family during this time.
The language is not flowing because the typography, the lack of syntax and punctuation makes it confusing. The word "etcetera" was thrown in here and there, but why? This made it very difficult to understand to get the whole picture, because the word's various positions caused an interruption. The word "etcetera" means "a number of unspecified additional persons or things." or "unspecified additional items". I believe Cummings wanted to say more within the poem but thought he could get his poem across by inserting "etcetera" in various places. He also might have been trying to make a statement by telling the world, "you don't have to get a point across by using a lot of detail sometime, you don't even have to use complete sentences..or even sentences at all for that matter."
my sweet old etcetera
The poem explains her hardships. Reading poetry is different from reading prose because you really have to dig deeper and study harder. A poem is not always straight forward like many other writings. You have to use context clues and understand imagery, tone, and sense. Summarizing a poem becomes difficult if you do not re-read several times. I learned that figurative language and lifestyle really tells a great story. Language especially helps you understand what is going on between the lines. Overall, family is always there at the end of the day. Sometimes situations get tough, but there is always a light at the end of the
Throughout history there have been many poets and some have succeeded while other didn’t have the same luck. But in history e.e. Cummings has stunned people with his creativity and exposure to the real world and not living in the fantasy people imagine they live in. Cummings was a great poet, and was able to make his own way of writing while he was also involved greatly in the modernist movement. But he demonstrates all his uniqueness in all and every poem, delivering people with knowledge and making them see the world with different eyes as in the poem “Since feeling is first”.
As the tone of the above discussion probably made clear, I rather enjoyed the first part of Connected Knowledge, which challenges many of the popular misinterpretations of modern physics. Cromer’s arguments are cogent even for the non-scientist, and it is clear that this is his field of expertise. But when Connected Knowledge ventured out of the realm of physics into that of social science, I found the discussion somewhat arrogant. In his attempt to discredit constructivist thought, Cromer offers only one way of understanding the world. I find such a view too narrow and too restrictive. I am not a relativist in that I think all approaches are equally valid, but I don’t believe that science provides the only route to understanding and should be the basis of every decision we make.
First, a brief explanation of the poem is in order. In it, six hundred soldiers ride for a league and a half to enter the battle. They were ordered forward against the Russian and Cossack forces, despite being largely outnumbered. Even though the blunder was known, the soldiers did not hesitate as it was not their place. Many died in the battle, and few survived.
A recent article says that trijicon, inc. a company that makes combat rifle sights for the u.s. military will be sending kits to the military to remove the bible inscriptions that were put on to the gear. The company originally melted these bible inscriptions into the metal, but has decided to remove them when the rifle sights raised concern in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that this article is an issue about the first amendment, establishment clause, and free exercise clause: should a company that is providing products to the government be able to display religious texts upon its products? Nbc news. "Defense contractor to remove bible references." Web.
Robert Creeley, a famous American poet, lived from 1926 to 2005. Creeley was normally associated as a Black Mountain poet because that is where he taught, and spent most of his career. Throughout his life, Creeley wrote many different pieces of poetry. Four great poems by Robert Creeley are, “For Love”, “Oh No”, “The Mirror”, and “The Rain”. The poem “For Love”,was written by Creeley for his wife. In this poem Creeley explains, the love someone has for another person, and how complicated it is making his life because the person doesn’t know how to explain their love. “Oh No” is a poem that is literally about a selfish person who ended up in hell, but this poem has a deeper meaning. Part
Cummings, E. E. Poems 1923 ‚ 1954. New York : Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1926.
Michael Polyani was known for being a physical chemist, economist, and philosopher. In the second chapter of Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb, he discusses Polyani's concept of the "republic of science". It is used to explain accepted governing principles in the scientific community which have not been made clear to those outside of it. As said by American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, "If we know the rules, we consider that we 'understand' the world" (Rhodes- 32). This paper will discuss two of the three principles, the apprenticeship concept and the undesirablilty of strong, central leadrship, and how these concepts evolved in both pre and post World War II physics.
Meno is very surprised at Socrates’s answer, therefore he decides to explain the definition to Socrates. On his first attempt, Meno gives a list of all the virtues that men and women have. Socrates points out that it is just a list of various virtue but it does not define what virtue is. He makes reference of Meno’s information is like a swarm of bees. There may be different types of bee but we do not know the essence that makes them a bee. On Meno’s second attempt, he defines virtue as the power to rule over people. Socrates asks Meno to add “justly” in the phrase “to rule over people.” He then asks Meno if justice is virtue or a virtue. The example here is that roundness is a shape but not shape itself. There are many other shapes. Same concept applies to virtue. Justice is a virtue but there are many other virtues. Meno does not give up, he attempts to explain the third time. This time, he says that virtue is to desire beautiful things and power to have them. Those beautiful things are wealth, health and fame. Once again, Meno’s answer is just a composite of many things put together. It does not give the definition. Meno asks Socrates to answer
... is shown moreover through these pauses. We also see that he places question marks at the end of sentences, which is another way he is showing us the uncertainty in the voice of society. Through his punctuation and word placement, we clearly see the voice of society in his poem, but in a way that tells us not to conform to it.
Chaos and drudgery are common themes throughout the poem, displayed in its form; it is nearly iambic pentameter, but not every line fits the required pattern. This is significant because the poem’s imperfect formulation is Owen making a statement about formality, the poem breaks the typical form to show that everything is not functioning satisfactorily. The poem’s stanza’s also begin short, but become longer, like the speaker’s torment and his comrades movement away from the open fire. The rhyming scheme of ABABCDCD is one constant throughout the poem, but it serves to reinforce the nature of the cadence as the soldiers tread on. The war seems to drag on longer and longer for the speaker, and represents the prolonged suffering and agony of the soldier’s death that is described as the speaker dwells on this and is torn apart emotionally and distorts his impressions of what he experiences.
Frantz Fanon argues the decolonization must always be a violent phenomenon because resisting a colonizing power using only politics will not work. Europeans justified colonization by treating it as gods work. They believed that god wanted then to occupy all lands and spread the word of god to savages of darker skin color. Fanon joined the Algerian Nationalist Movement when the Algeria was being colonized be the French. Many examples of violence written of in The Wretched of the Earth were taken from the struggle for independence in Algeria. Also the writing is sympathetic towards colonized natives. Fanon claims decolonization causes violent actions from both settlers and natives and creates intolerant views toward the opposite party.
At the same time, the nature of European interest in Africa changed dramatically.************* Frantz Fanon’s 1959 book, A Dying Colonialism, offers an interesting look on the Algerian War of Independence. In spite of its often gruelling subject matter, this book remains strangely optimistic. As the title suggest, Fanon is describing the end of a system. It is important to note that Fanon is not arguing that colonialism has indeed ended already, but rather that the end is coming soon. Simply put his book is a convincing argument for how colonialism is in decline. How there cannot be a future that sees Algeria under colonial rule. How “colonialism has definitely lost out in Algeria” (Fanon,: 31). Fanon saw how the French had already lost the battle for controlling the Algerian psychology. They had lost the battle for ideas. In light of the work of Antonio Gramsci, they were not able to exercise hegemony in Algeria. They for instance tried to convince Algerian women that they were being oppressed (Fanon: 38). By doing this they hoped to gain power over men whilst simultaneously destroying Algerian culture (Fanon: 38). This was clearly an instance of what Gayatri Spivak refers to as the phenomenon of “white men saving brown women from brown men” (Fanon: 33). Fanon sees this attempt by the French as an absolute failure. Even though they do indeed use the rhetoric that is so
...e seems valuable as holding one group to high-esteem than others always leads to a conflict as the other groups react due to the inferiority sentiments. In the African context, this was not only the case in Kenya during the post-election violence but the cause of the Rwandan genocide as well. In a societal set up, one group attitudes of superiority often leads to the other group feeling inferior and insecure thus leading to outbreak of conflict. As much as the other two authors also manage to bring out their arguments and back them up with relevant sources, Macharia’s article holds more water as it is more logical and he has well-articulated his arguments and his opinion. He manages to clearly show that one of the lasting legacies of colonialism in Africa was indeed the ability of the colonial powers to leave colonies whose people were divided along ethnic lines.
The poem basically tells a story about the death of the captain of a ship men crew. The speaker of the poem is a sailor of the ship crew. He grieves mournfully about the death of his respectfully captain. Gloomy and dreary atmospheres are vividly sensed throughout the poem as the speaker lamenting the captain’s death.