Analysis of e.e. cummings' since feeling is first

1084 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The importance of poetry in life and literature

Analysis of e.e. cummings' since feeling is first

E. E. Cummings' poem "since feeling is first" is a poem which shows how emotions dictate people's actions and why the narrator thinks they should. The poem implies that to follow one's heart is better than following one's mind, yet, at the same time the poem is the narrator's analysis of why emotion comes before thought. The last line of the poem brings a twist on theme that the rest of the poem seems to be following. It speaks of death and of thought, rather than of life and emotion, showing that death is something that should not be ignored in life, and that thought is important even with the domination of feeling. Cummings enhances these themes by using the literary elements of diction and tone, irony, and setting and situation.

The poem says that "since feeling is first" (line 1) the one who pays attention to the meaning of things will never truly embrace. The poem states that it is better to be a fool, or to live by emotions while one is young. The narrator declares that his "blood approves" (line 7) showing that his heart approves of living by feeling, and that the fate of feeling enjoyment is better than one of "wisdom" (line 9) or learning. He tells his "lady" (line 10) not to cry, showing that he is speaking to her. He believes that she can make him feel better than anything he could think of, because her "eyelids" (line 12) say that they are "for each other" (line 13). Then, after all she's said and thought, his "lady" forgets the seriousness of thought and leans into the narrator's arms because life is not a "paragraph" (line 15), meaning that life is brief. The last line in the poem is a statement which means that death is no small thi...

... middle of paper ...

...ing someone who appears to be close to him. The poem could have been inspired by a scene similar to the one described in the poem as something that more people should follow, else than one close to the poet.

Through his verse, E. E. Cummings shows readers his natural inclination towards living through emotions and his justification of why his way of living comes "first" (line 1) to living through thought. Living with his heart feels better to E. E. Cummings in comparison to living through his mind, and so it is better. He has also determined that "the best gesture of his brain" (line 11) could never live up to the actions of love or true feeling. Yet, "since feeling comes first" (line 1) the thought must come second. This poet has shown readers that he has an understanding of life, but he could not begin to understand without the gift of thought.

Show More
Related

  • Roots And Ee Cummings Analysis

    775 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout, his poems he gives us two different definitions. There might have been more than two meanings of being, but these two were the ones that stood out the most to me. As a person you have a choice to be yourself around others, or to be someone you’re not. Accepting who you are and being yourself makes you a better poet, according to Cummings. His idea of “being” is to accept who you are because you are the only person who can accept of who you are no one else. “Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else” (19). Throughout Cummings poems he believes that “being” is harder than “unbeing” because there may be people out there that won’t accept of who you

    Read More

  • American Poets: Biography of E. E. Cummings

    1546 Words  | 4 Pages

    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”.

    Read More

  • The Google Motorola Acquisition: Case Of The Google Motorola Acquisition

    3434 Words  | 7 Pages

    The commotion lead to investors and brand patriots alike, wondering how an internet giant like Google can integrate with and run a hardware company that had been profusely bleeding cash and had begun the downward spiral over the last few quarters. A quick answer was that Google could now manufacture hardware in large quantities. Motorola was once a major mobile manufacturer. Looking at the OEM market share data, Motorola, at the time, held a market share of 13.7%. This had plummeted from the previous year's share of 20%.

    Read More

  • Swot Analysis Of Whole Foods

    1323 Words  | 3 Pages

    After conducting a basic 10 year financial analysis of the company, it has become evident that even with a highly competitive market structure they are able to improve on their performance. Ranging from 2004 to 2013 financial information, the company has shown a significant increase in their sales revenue roughly $3865 million sales in 2004 to almost four time that valuing $12970 million in 2013, which was an “increase of 10.4% over the 53 week prior year” The company’s growth strategy has been to diversify its product market and make them...

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Marilyn Dumont's 'When You Walk Through My Door'

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first stanza describes the depth of despair that the speaker is feeling, without further explanation on its causes. The short length of the lines add a sense of incompleteness and hesitance the speaker feels towards his/ her emotions. This is successful in sparking the interest of the readers, as it makes the readers wonder about the events that lead to these emotions. The second and third stanza describe the agony the speaker is in, and the long lines work to add a sense of longing and the outpouring emotion the speaker is struggling with. The last stanza, again structured with short lines, finally reveals the speaker 's innermost desire to "make love" to the person the speaker is in love

    Read More

  • To His Coy Mistress And Youth's The Season Made For Joys

    1106 Words  | 3 Pages

    Time is equated with constant decay throughout the entire poem, which is primarily shown in the speaker’s comparison of the concept of eternity to a desert. Love, and other concepts felt in life, are subject to this negative force of deconstruction over time, and are vanquished in death; this idea can be seen in the witty commentary at the end of the second stanza, “the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace”

    Read More

  • UPS Case Study

    1776 Words  | 4 Pages

    All the other aspects of this company show that even if the economic situation at this point is not that bright their sales is rising, and that all is the result of hard work within and outside the company, UPS structure and UPS management.

    Read More

  • Metaphors In Sonnet 73

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    These three metaphors exemplify beauty, but also an end to nature and life. Death is slowly creeping up to him and taking over his life as realized in this comparison of him to nature. The poem shows the need to seize the moment in life before death. The last couplet talks about the topic of love and the power of it. Love lasts through the struggles in life, and the changes of seasons. Love of life keeps us from realizing that an end will eventually come. “This thou perciev’st, which makes thy love more strong.” Encompasses the idea that although everything comes to an end, love still fuels everything within a person. He realizes everything will come to an end and death is inevitable but the passion is still

    Read More

  • Since Feeling is First

    1520 Words  | 4 Pages

    if the minor details were not taken into consideration. The literary device ; connotation and imagery supports the figurative meaning of the poem very well. However, this poem could be considered as an irony in today's world. The theme; feelings are more important than wisdom in life is just another way of saying the thoughts are less important than the feeling that are being produced. The wisdom is just a minor detail and if we consider it, the feeling that are produced will be ignored. The poem literally talks about a man expressing his love to his beloved women. This poem is in a stanzaic form with a total number of 16 lines. It is a wonderful poem that makes the readers think about the life they are living.

    Read More

  • The Cell Phone Industry

    773 Words  | 2 Pages

    Manufacturers and service providers of cell phones are located throughout the world, although, as inCode, a wireless business and technology consulting firm, suggests, “Not many wireless carriers today have a truly global presence.”  However, the company predicts that “the top 10 wireless carriers are going to make a push for globalization in the coming years” (“InCode releases…”).  Most especially, inCode foresees service providers reaching to “unconquered markets like China, which is the fastest growing wireless market in the world” (“InCode releases…”).  Some companies have already tapped into the global marketplace, spreading areas of coverage across continents.  The cell phone manufacturer Nokia, for example, is rooted in Finland, but sells cellular phone products virtually everywhere on the globe.  Service providers, although most often more less expansive in scope, are also trying to provide more global coverage.

    Read More

  • E.E. Cumming's Poem I Carry your Heart with Me

    1233 Words  | 3 Pages

    E.E Cummings’ poem “ i carry your heart with me(i carry it in)” show’s exactly what people truly feel, it’s as if he yanked someones feelings straight from their heart and put them on paper. This poem is the best explanation of true love, that there is. He says, that this woman is his love, he will love her forever, and no matter how far she may be from him, she will still be in his heart. Nothing could ever make his feelings for her fade away. When someone really truly loves someone, nothing could make them stop loving that person. They will always have a special place in each others hearts. Cummings starts out saying in the first stanza that she is in his heart, then in the second stanza it grows into her being his world, nothing means more to him. Now, in the third stanza he tells her that she is his biggest secret, a mystery to everyone else. Lastly, the most meaningful part of the poem, in my opinion is the last stanza, where he simply states. “I carry your heart(I carry it in my heart)”(line 14). It seems so simple, but after going deep in explanation about his love, that small statement has a much bigger meaning than it did in the first stanza. In this beautiful poem, "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in", E.E Cummings shows how permanent his undying love is for this woman, and how no one and nothing in the world will ever mean more to him, He uses themes of love, and possibly longing for this woman in this poem, to possibly teach the reader how to love, or to stay loyal no matter how tough of a fight that may be.

    Read More

  • The Concept Of Love In Elizabeth Browning's Sonnet 43

    861 Words  | 2 Pages

    By using references of her grief or her losses, Browning creates a more realistic view of her love suggesting that her love is sincere as it comes from a grieved person, which differs to the positive and idealistic feelings portray in the first octave. The poet then talks about her fondness of her love, revealing that her she lives for her love “ I love thee with the breath, / smiles, tears, of all my life;” (line 12-13), the asyndetic listings of the verbs ‘breath’, ‘smiles’ and ‘tears’, implying that her love can stem from different emotions she feels such as happiness and sadness, suggesting to her beloved that her love comes from good and sad points of her life.

    Read More

  • Truth in Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn and Cummings' since feeling is first

    1807 Words  | 4 Pages

    Truth remains a mysterious essential: sought out, created, and destroyed in countless metaphysical arguments through time. Whether argued as being absolute or relative, universal or personal, no thought is perceived or conceived without an assessment of its truth. In John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and E.E. Cummings' "since feeling is first" the concern is not specifically the truth of a thought, but rather, the general nature of truth; the foundation which gives truth is trueness . Both poets replace investigation with decision, and that which would be argumentation in the hands of philosophers becomes example and sentiment in their poems. Each poet's examples create a resonance within the reader, engineered to engender belief or provoke thought. Employing images of unconsummated actions on an ancient urn carved with scenes from life, Keats suggests that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"; Cummings, on the other hand, offers emotion as the foundation of truth, and supports living life fully through diction, theme-suggestive syntax, and images of accomplished action.

    Read More

  • E. Ee Cummings And The Life Of Edward Estlin Cummings

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    E.E. Cummings was a poet that experimented with poetic form and language to create his own personal style. He also revised grammatical and linguistic rules to suit his own purposes, using words such as “if”, “am,” and “because” as nouns, or assigning his own private meaning to words. This is called a transcendentalist poet, a poet that completely ignores the rules of poetry. Up to his death Cummings held a prominent position in the twentieth century poetry. Cummings was such a great poet that Malcolm Cowley said “Cummings has written at least a dozen poems that seem to me matchless. Three are among the great love poems of our time or any time”. Cummings was not the only one...

    Read More

  • Esthetic Emotion In Poetry

    1386 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emotions are evoked with the aim to free persons from disturbing emotions. In instances of pity and fear persons tend to accumulate these feelings, which is harmful to the soul. In tragedy, however, whatever sufferings witnessed are not in our control and these emotions are easily released thereby relieve the excess in our souls. Tragedy transforms these distressing emotions into “calm of mind”, thus, the emotional appeal of poetry leads to pleasure. In addition, esthetic emotion in poetry translates to pleasure. The reader and the listener of the poem are prompted through figurative language to visualize what is in the real world. The vividness of the imaginary world that is experienced by the reader, poet and listener generates to a new spiritual knowledge or understanding which gives pleasure (Berlant, p.189). To add on, melancholy as an aesthetic emotion is a source of pleasure. Melancholy involves a variety of emotions; a yearning, sadness, feeling uplifted and even an elusive excitement. It has both pleasure and displeasure aspects. The displeasure aspect lies in the feeling of grief, fear of the unknown, loneliness and emptiness. The pleasurable aspect is entirely about reflecting on elaborate illusion and happy memories. Melancholy is therefore deliberately pursued by finding seclusion. In seclusion reflection is deepened which in turn prolongs the pleasure. Dylan in his poem reveals instances of melancholy Gale, Cengage Learning,

    Read More

More about Analysis of e.e. cummings' since feeling is first

Open Document