E.E. Cummings is one of the most creative poets of 20th century modernist poetry. E.E. Cummings does not let traditional structure and diction to limit his creativity. He is well-known for his play with syntax, capitalization and punctuation also known as typography. His word choices are powerful strokes for his poems. He paints his poems with the effective use of imagery. “E.E. Cummings appreciates uniqueness and nature but dislikes conformity and artificiality” (Kennedy 1571). This attitude is reflected in his works. Even though E. E. Cummings write “i like my body when it is with your” and “pity this busy monster, maunkind” with similar structure, excellent word choices and imagery; these two poems have opposing themes and tones. Their themes and tones assert E.E. Cummings appreciation of nature and ingratitude of artificiality.
Both “i like my body when it is with your” and “pity the monster manunkind” are written in fourteen-line sonnet form without iambic pentameter. Cummings uses his powerful play with syntax to effectively visualize his ideas in the structures of these poems. The structure of “i like my body when it is with your” visually imitates the slow builds up excitement of lovemaking toward the climax. Punctuation and line spacing cleverly reflect the pause and pull back in this love scene which Cummings is trying to paint. In “pity this busy monster, manunkind,” lack of spacing between words such as “mountainrange” and “wherewhen” gives an affect that the progress of this comfortable disease he is describing is contagious and unstoppable. The use of dashes between two irrelevant sentences gives the affect that speaker of this poem is impatient. The line “a hopeless case if—listen” shows that the speaker of th...
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...s busy monster, manukind” displays his love of nature and human uniqueness. All this creativity, typography and lovely attitude toward love and nature made him one of the most successful poets of the 20th century modernist poetry.
Works Cited
Cummings, E. E. “i like my body when it is with your” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter and Richard Yarborough. 6th ed. Vol. D. Boston: Wadsworth Cencage Learning, 2010. 1573-1574. Print.
Cummings, E. E. “pity this busy monster; manunkind” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter and Richard Yarborough. 6th ed. Vol. D. Boston: Wadsworth Cencage Learning, 2010. 1580-1581. Print.
Kennedy, Richard S. “E.E. Cummings 1894-1962” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter and Richard Yarborough. 6th ed. Vol. D. Boston: Wadsworth Cencage Learning, 2010. 1571. Print.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton, 1998. 1578-1690.
Bensick, Carol. "Jonathan Edwards." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed.Paul Lauter. Canada: DC Heath and Company, 1990. 561-564.
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”.
The poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by E.E. Cummings talks about the cycle of life and the importance of structure, symbolism, and language of the poem. For instance, the poem has nine stanzas, which has a rhyming pattern of AABC. The rhythm of the poem is significant for it supports one of themes, the cycle of life. Cumming uses season to explain the poem's progress. “spring summer autumn winter” (3) and “sun moon stars rain” (8) symbolizes time passing, which represents life passing. In the poem, as the seasons and skies rotate, life continues along with them. In addition, the uses of the words “snow” (22), “buried” (27), “was by was” (28), and “day by day” (29) leading to death. Towards the end of the poem, the depression of death was mention, but Cumming was just stating the n...
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“Xanadu” is a wonderful “Paradise” of fantasy, but Coleridge draws the readers back to reality with the word “I.” He immediately transitions from describing visionary objects to explaining his own poetic challenge. The “pleasure-dome” mirrors the poem and Kubla Khan mirrors Coleridge. The poem ultimately becomes a “vision in a dream,” where the reader recognizes the images that Coleridge recreates through imagination.