Ee Cummings Rhetorical Analysis

E.E. Cummings, the poet who got paid for publishing poems with crazy indentation and moo-woos. E. E. Cummings lived in America in the 1900’s and was a painter as well as a poet. How did E. E. Cummings use auditory and visual techniques in his poems to create a deeper meaning? E. E. Cummings creates meaning in his poems by using Auditory and visual techniques at the disposal.

First of all, E.E. Cummings used visual techniques to show meaning. He uses punctuation and spacing to show things described in the poem. In the poem “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-g-a-r”(Doc B) he uses spacing to make a picture of a grasshopper. In the same poem, he also uses to a semicolon at the end to show how the grasshopper isn’t finished “grasshopper;”(Doc B). Relating to this,

in another one of his poems “l(a” he separates “loneliness” from “ a leaf falls” (Doc A). These poems use spacing and punctuation to create meaning.

In Addition, E.E Cummings also used auditory techniques to show meaning. He uses onomatopoeia and spacing to better express what is going on. In the poem “in Just-” he uses spacing to slow the reader down, or speed it up; “far and wee” is used with a lot of spacing making the reader wait before they say the next word (Doc C) It also speeds up in the poem with parts like “bettyanddisbel” where it’s all squished together (Doc C). In the poem “O the sun goes up-up-up in the morning he uses sounds to show a lively scene “moo-woo”(Doc D). These help create the scene and meaning in the poem.

The poems E.E. Cummings creates use sight and sound to help create meaning.