In the midst of the twentieth century, poet Edward Estlin Cummings, stylized as
e.e. cummings, gained reputability for his writing, containing themes such as love, death, and the human condition. Renowned for its distinct style, cummings’ poetry features deliberate disregard of punctuation and use of irregular syntax. Cummings paid attention to the visual aspects of his poetry, and arranged the words in his poems in a particularly eye-catching way in order to convey the message or theme in his text. His erratic stylistic choices forced the audience to immerse in and become more conscious of the text itself. In 1940, Cummings wrote “anyone lived in a pretty how town,” a bleak depiction of how the mentality present in a small town isolates people from society for the entirety of their lives, from childhood to adulthood throughout all the 4 seasons. The protagonist in the poem, “anyone,” represents society as a whole, and is the only one who is able to love and live a fulfilling life, allowing him to fall in love with “noone”. “Anyone”
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In “anyone lived in a pretty how town,” the frequent use of irregular syntax and juxtaposition between the conformists, everyones and the individuals, “anyone” and “noone” through the metaphoric use of the cycling four seasons and weather in order to convey the message of inevitable passage of time that allows the townspeople to remain in their cycle of conformity.
Cummings incorporated his frequently used technique of disarrayed syntax and attentiveness to sporadic typography and punctuation, according to Harmon, in his poem, “anyone lived in a pretty how town,” in order to delineate the message prominent in the poem’s text, to prevent the reader from simply
I think her unusual punctuation and capitalization adds and distracts to her poetry at the same time. Her choice of writing adds to her poetry by giving us a glimpse of what Emily Dickinson was feeling at the time she wrote those poems. I also don’t think that she meant for most of her work to be read. I believe the main reason she had the filing system was to go back and correct the mistakes that she had made but since she had written so many poems maybe she never got around to completing them correctly.
Negative experiences of belonging within the individual’s place of residence results in low self-esteem and develops the desire to escape and seek belonging elsewhere. We witness this in Herrick’s The Simple Gift in Longlands Road, when Billy says, ‘this place has never looked so rundown and beat’, which conveys his lack of connection to the place through pejorative colloquial personification of place. The “rundown and beat” nature of “place” parallels Billy’s perception of both himself and his home by using the pathetic fallacy of rain. Moreover, his hatred towards “Nowhereville” is expressed using coarse language and the symbolic action of vandalising the houses of his neighbours with pejorative colloquialism in ‘I throw one rock on the road of each deadbeat no hoper shithole lonely downtrodden house.’ This shows the place of residence is an important influence on creating a sens...
From the beginning of the story the village is described in a dull and bland manner. The village was described to be made up of only twen...
Gradually, inhabitants wake from their slumber and start another day stuck in perpetual monotony. The town suffocates all who remain—trapped by the weather, trapped by their hardships, trapped and by themselves. Edith Wharton displays how surroundings mold a person's life through conditions they undergo. Using the setting,
In his poem "l(a", the words are arranged in such a way that they are falling down the page. He only puts several letters of each word on a line and then continues to spell the word down the page. The main focus of the poem is about loneliness and the words almost appear to be "lonely." He uses parentheses around the phrase "a leaf falls," which appears in the middle of the poem. The remaining letters in the poem spell "loneliness." When these are placed together in the same poem, it creates an effect that there is a leaf falling from a tree to the ground where it will be lonely because it will be separated from the tree. Cummings emphasizes the image of being alone or aloof by using two versions of the word one. On the first line, he uses the letter "l," which also looks like the number "1." On ...
The next theme used by the author to inspire a feeling of despair in this story is the randomness of persecution. By making the villagers draw these slips of paper once a year would provoke a feeling of hopelessness. Because they know that no matter what they do one day they may be subjected to this brutal death. And it woul...
The primary concept of the poem being that there is a wealth of beauty in nature, yet the speaker would rather have, more than any of that beauty, a kiss from a nondescript character referred to as “you”. This entity is a recurring character in a majority of Cummings’ , often making his work act as a romantic declaration to whoever wishes to use his poetry. Love is his most frequently written about, if not at least his most popular, subject in his poetry, from “It May Not Always Be So; And I Say” to “My Love” to “Listen” the essence of his writing is love. Another of his more well documented themes is sexuality, though not as bluntly written in as love is, it is still a rather favored of his motifs. Some of the more straightforward poems where it can be seen include titles such as “I Like My Body When It Is With Your Body”, “She Being Brand”, and “My Naked Lady Framed”. Cummings utilizes both of these themes, along with many others, to create his distinct style by using his plethora of techniques of disregarding conventional
To begin, the story opens with a family receiving a visit by a stranger on a November evening. Since the author uses words like “chill, damp, deepening dusk” (Oates 325) to describe the condition of the
The poem begins with an end-stopped line. The next four sentences are end-stopped lines, as well. These sentences end with periods; when ending a sentence with a period, Cummings emphasizes the sentence and makes the reader reflect on what he or she has read. Use of periods is uncommon for Cummings, who tends to use unique punctuation at seemingly random times. These sentences appear to be straightforward, displaying how Cummings wants the diction to speak rather than the punctuation.
... 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.
search paper) E.E. Cummings (re In the realm of poetry, punctuation has always been seen (to the ignorant eye) as a lesser tool in the development of a poem. The poet E. E. Cummings sought to change the seemingly necessary formalities in poetic writing by utilizing punctuation in a way very different than that which is defined in a grammar textbook. Punctuation has the capability of developing just as much meaning as literary devices, forms, and meters. Cummings’s work transcends the common usage of the parenthesis in a manner that is unorthodox but still effective in its purpose.
Cummings makes the reader take many twists and contortions using an assortment of rearrangements of the word grasshopper. When reading this poem, you begin to see that the structure of the poem is of the same nature of a grasshopper. Along with a grasshopper, the poem leaps and hops from place to place.“r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r” illustrates simply the movements of a grasshopper, which Cummings describes as ungathering, rearranging, and leaping. The syllables of the word grasshopper also enhances this effect of the actions of a grasshopper by being arranged in the manner of an acrostic, using scattered punctuation, and the spacing of words. The reader feels as if they just saw a grasshopper leap after reading. The way Cummings writes this is to put a certain emphasis on every letter of the poem. He and the reader cherish every single letter and punctuation mark because it slows down the pace of the reader and makes them take in the entire
The average reader cannot help but be affected by Dickinson’s style. The capitalized words draw the reader’s attention. They highlight important key words of the poem. The dashes set apart specific words and phrases, forcing the reader to slow down while reading. The dashes compel the reader to contemplate and ponder over the lines. Thus, whether or not Dickinson had a conscious purpose in her unconventional capitalization and punctuation, they have an undeniable effect on the rhythm of the poem and the perception of the reader.
The story begins as the boy describes his neighborhood. Immediately feelings of isolation and hopelessness begin to set in. The street that the boy lives on is a dead end, right from the beginning he is trapped. In addition, he feels ignored by the houses on his street. Their brown imperturbable faces make him feel excluded from the decent lives within them. The street becomes a representation of the boy’s self, uninhabited and detached, with the houses personified, and arguably more alive than the residents (Gray). Every detail of his neighborhood seems designed to inflict him with the feeling of isolation. The boy's house, like the street he lives on, is filled with decay. It is suffocating and “musty from being long enclosed.” It is difficult for him to establish any sort of connection to it. Even the history of the house feels unkind. The house's previous tenant, a priest, had died while living there. He “left all his money to institutions and the furniture of the house to his sister (Norton Anthology 2236).” It was as if he was trying to insure the boy's boredom and solitude. The only thing of interest that the boy can find is a bicycle pump, which is rusty and rendered unfit to play with. Even the “wild” garden is gloomy and desolate, containing but a lone apple tree and a few straggling bushes. It is hardly the sort of yard that a young boy would want. Like most boys, he has no voice in choosing where he lives, yet his surroundings have a powerful effect on him.
E.E. Cummings suggests, "feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things." According to Cummings, poetry is purely defined by the feelings the poem expresses and syntax plays no role. This is evident when he writes "for life's not a paragraph And death I think is no parenthesis." While poetry must express feelings and must create "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." Poetry cannot be defined by these standards alone. After all, without certain rules to define poetry any expression of emotion can be defined as poetry. While it is true that the main purpose of poetry is to create worlds and express emotions, poetry must also accomplish more.