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e.e. cummings poetry analysis
analysis essay on Anyone lived in a pretty how town EE Cummings
e.e. cummings poetry analysis
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The Poetry of E.E. Cummings
Edward Estlen Cummings engages the intuitiveness of readers of his poetry with precision. A painter as well as poet, Cummings uses words to create vivid and visceral moments of meaning that are the beating heart of Cummings’ poetry.
The form and content of E. E. Cummings’ poetry is driven by and results from his own personal philosophy regarding the transcendent importance of love and individualism over reason and societal norms. The relationships between those central themes are here explored in three of his poems, published within a span of fourteen years, with the main focus being the poem, “anyone lived in a pretty how town”.
Cummings was a critical lightening rod in his day, and remains controversial even among some of today’s critics. He is, however, one of America’s most-read poets (Silea 2; Baum 104). The target of this controversy was less his subject matter than the manner in which he expressed it. To varying degrees at different stages of his life, he deconstructed the English language, breaking grammatical structures into bits and pieces, only to put them back together in new and thought-provoking ways. He did not do this in ignorance, but with keen awareness of the rules upon which he transgressed: “trying to write poetry before you’ve learned all there is to know about writing is like…trying build yourself a house from the ridgepole down;instead of laying the foundations first & then erecting a structure on them, story by story” (Letters 205).
By today’s standards, this flouting of convention may seem quite tame. This would in likelihood not be the case were it not for the ground broken, plowed and sown by Cummings.
One of Cumming’s ...
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Fulton, Alice. “You Can’t Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain.” Approaching Poetry: Perspectives and Responses. Ed. Peter Schakel and Jack Ridl. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. 128-29.
Ellmann, Richard and Robert O’Clair, eds. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988.
A writer’s choice of nouns and verbs alters the feel and meaning of a poem. A prime expel of this fact is in the Crowder Collage literature book, on page even hundred seventy-three, more topics for writing, number two. I chose the poem “When the Time’s Toxins,” by Christian Wiman, for the exercise.
Strand, Mark and Evan Boland. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. New
...us 75.1 (Jan. 1991): 150-159. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 58. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
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Ferguson, Margaret W. , Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. The Norton Anthology Of Poetry. shorter fifth edition. New York, New York: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2005. print.
Allen, Donald, ed. The New American Poetry 1945-1960. Berkely, CA.: U. of California P., 1999.
Ellmann, Richard and O'Clair, Robert, ed. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Second Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.
Southard, Sherry. "Whitman and Language: Great Beginnings for Great American Poetry." Mount Olive Review 4 (Spring 1990): 45-54.
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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).