THE ANATOMY OF e. e. cummings(a modernist poet) - MARVIN

THE ANATOMY OF e. e. cummings(a modernist poet) - MARVIN

THIS IS ONE OF THE MANY POSTS SOON TO COME ON THE BLOG FOR EDUCATION IN POETRY BY PROF. MARVIN(HA HA!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHO PROF. MARVIN IS, DO YOU??)

Edward Estlin Cummings shocked his critics in the beginning of the 20th century with a style all his own. Although many poets have gradually broken the rules of poetry in varying degrees, only this poet interjects himself immediately when speaking of an entirely unconventional artist. Cummings got his start writing for two newsletters at Harvard, and later published several books of his poetry, paintings, and drawings. Even though the critics remain in two separate camps on his poetry, there is no denying the impact he has had as a modernist, encouraging later poets to write what they feel regardless of the so-called rules. E.E. Cummings’s visual style, command of vocabulary, and innovation make him the most influential poet of the 20th century.

Cummings was an inspired artist as well as poet. He created provocative drawings and impressionistic paintings with vivid colors. This artistic style also molds his poetry into a visual art. He uses the white space on the page as much as he uses periods, commas, and colons to lead the eye on a journey down the page. He has suffered at the pen of literary critics in this regard, as many think his stylings are unnecessary and ineffective. However, this visual style is what most sets him apart from his contemporaries. A more recent critique of Cummings agrees, saying, “This playful tinkering with language is the most obvious and appealing sign of Cummings's originality” (Kirsch).

E.E. Cummings is perhaps best known for his use of unusual punctuation. Critics have slammed Cummings in the past and present for this visual explosion. The critic Harriet Monroe said of Cummings in 1924, “Mr. Cummings has an eccentric system of typography which, in our opinion, has nothing to do with the poem, but intrudes itself irritatingly, like scratched or blurred spectacles, between it and the reader's mind” (Monroe). I could not disagree more. While this technique is difficult to get used to at the outset, it is essential to the emotion and meter of a Cummings poem. His unusual typography slows the reader down, adding dramatic pauses where needed, and serves as a signpost to accentuate what the poet really intends to emphasize. Cummings does not arbitrarily give attention to the pronoun “I” or the first line of each stanza by capitalization as is done in traditional poetry. He instead capitalizes only when he feels it is necessary, even in the middle of a word. When the puzzle that is a Cummings poem is unlocked, the reader is led into the mind of the poet, and into a deeper sensual understanding of the poem as a whole. His poetry suffers greatly when these eccentricities are removed, making the rhythm of the poem less impressive and neutralizing a great deal of its emotional impact, thus destroying the illusion of being in the moment with Cummings.

Cummings frequently utilizes parenthesis where they would not ordinarily be used. His use of parenthesis gives a multi-dimensional persona to the poem. The poet is concerned with catching all of a moment in its entirety, and is not preoccupied with planned and linear sentence structure. He inserts a thought wherever needed, perhaps in the middle of a word, or off to the side and below the rest of the poem, compressing all sensations and perceptions of a situation or emotion into the space of a second. For this reason, Cummings poems are best seen in their original form, and this author will recreate Cummings’s poems as they are published when quoting them in order for the reader to understand the importance of his unique literary tools. This form is exemplified in the following poem, “l (a” (Selected Poems 39) showing how his masterful use of parenthesis allows the reader to exist in a single moment with E.E. Cummings:
l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l
iness (1-9)
Here, we have two ideas merging into a single whole—a leaf falling, and loneliness. It is also important to note that the word “one” within “loneliness” is singled out on a line of its own; this further emphasizes the emotional impact of the poem. The critic S. V. Baum praises Cummings use of this technique, saying,

'Because of his extreme honesty as a poet, he has been compelled to describe the complex unit of experience without the presence of falsifying temporal order. Perception of the moment involves many impressions, none complete in itself; instead, they blur and overlap one into the other. In order to catch the effect of all-at-oneness, Cummings inserts some part of the experience within the boundaries of parentheses and so suggests the simultaneousness of imagery.' (78)

The use of eccentric punctuation is enhanced by Cummings’s use of white space on the page. Cummings uses this technique to help the reader feel and see the slow falling of a snowflake, rather than just reading about it. This is praised in a new critique of his writings at his former alma mater, Harvard. Adam Kirsch says, “what looks like a thin trickle of letters becomes, to a reader who has learned Cummings's tricks, a picture in print: the snowflake alighting in a twirl, the severe vertical of the gravestone” (Kirsch). This is also true of the leaf falling in the previous example. In the poem that begins “O sweet spontaneous”, (100 Selected Poems 6) the use of space is illustrated perfectly. We see how the rude interruptions of the

prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked (6-8)

the earth. We later see the pace quicken and then slow gradually with the profound yet simple realization at the end of the poem:

(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest

them only with
spring) (19-27)

Cummings is equally adept at using lack of spaces between words such as in “Buffalo Bill’s” (100 Selected Poems) 7) where we learn that Bill used to break “onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat” (6). This device is to speed up speech and without it the pace and meaning of poetry would suffer. Cummings purposely employs this tactic so that the reader hears the poem exactly as Cummings would recite it.

These uses of space and punctuation are cues to help us read the poem more accurately, as Cummings intended. What we have in his best poems of this sort is a map that directs us to speed up, slow down, or stop. He also gives directions as to where the poem is going. Cummings poems may be floating up, falling down, gyrating, or even imitating the striptease of a burlesque dancer. Cummings shows us the movement of his thoughts through an unmatched use of the typewriter. This technique is widely seen as part of the cubist movement and Cummings is seen as a modernist himself, grouped with Pound and Eliot. However, he was the first poet to translate the cubist art into printed poetry, and although others have benefited from Cummings’s breaking of the grammatical rules of poetry, he remains the best at it.
E.E. Cummings displays a dazzling and sometimes dizzying command of vocabulary. He has been much criticized for his use of unusual typography; however, it cannot be denied that underneath it all, Cummings is a great poet who re-explores traditional subjects. He is also known for changing nouns into verbs and vice-versa, or writing, for example, the word “yes” as a noun. To prove his skill at composing poems without relying on tricks of typography, two poems are worthy of being highlighted. The first of these is one of the finest love poems ever composed, “Somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond” (100 Selected Poems 44).

This is perhaps Cummings’s best-known love poem, and certainly his finest showcase of the strong lyrical quality to his poems. The critic Robert K. Johnson says that this poem is representative of Cummings at his best, saying, “the poem contained Cummings’s typical dynamic intensity, an intensity that pulls the reader along line by line” (Johnson 960). In the opening stanza, Cummings declares, “your eyes have their silence: / in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, / or which I cannot touch because they are too near” (100 Selected Poems 2-4). This line evokes pure emotion—the phenomenon of being so totally encompassed in a lover, yet unable to grasp them. It coexists perfectly with the imagery which continues, “though I have closed myself as fingers, / you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens” (7-8) and he goes on to explain that his heart, as a flower, will close again, imagining “the snow carefully everywhere descending;” (15). He couples this beautiful imagery with two stanzas of thought-provoking material at the end of the poem. The second to last stanza is a fine example. It reads:

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing (16-20)

Here, Cummings pairs the texture and colors of his fragile lover with the resonating issues of her many layers, her countries. So compelling and wondrous is his love that by rendering death and forever in something as small and ordinary as her breath “the speaker intuits that physical reality and metaphysical reality are intertwined, and that the human spirit is immortal” (Johnson 961). That is a lofty claim for a simple love poem, and Cummings makes that claim more believable than any other poet of the 20th century.

Another example of Cummings’s great play on words is the way he changes words from one part of speech to another. In one simple and beautiful love poem, Cummings says that “yes is a pleasant country: / if’s wintry” (100 Selected Poems 1-2). He goes on to say, “both is the very weather” (5) “when violets appear” (8). It is a far leap to see the words yes, if, and both as a place or climate. Careful reading of this poem tells the reader that “yes” stands for everything life affirming, positive, and uplifting. Next, “if” represents everything in limbo, everything unsure and uneasy. Lastly, “both” represents togetherness and companionship. Cummings uses this tool repeatedly throughout his career. He is the inventor of this technique, and succeeds in turning conventional language into something new and different at a time when anything old used in a new way is a welcome addition to the literary toolbox.

E.E. Cummings is not always an easy poet to read. The genius of this poet is such that it often requires several readings to take everything in. This is because Cummings has invented a wholly new type of poetry. Indeed, he is not as forthcoming as Frost, but he also may not be as obtuse as Eliot. Fortunately, one does seem to learn his language over time so that a seasoned Cummings reader will have a much easier time with his work than a person reading him for the first time. Once that barrier is broken, it can feel as though the reader has burst into a new world of poetry, one where the traditionalism is still intact in theme and substance, however the medium is so fresh and intense it is invigorating.

Cummings writes about simple themes: love, the wonder of being alive, and springtime. He is also cynical and writes satirically about the time in which he lives; yet he does these things in such a new way as to be completely novel as a poet. Cummings does what the critic Malcolm Cowley says is very hard, that is 'after three thousand years of written literature, to say anything new, or anything old in a new way' (qtd. in Friedman 85). His innovation alone is worthy of merit. As the first writer to use such strange punctuation, utilize white space so effectively, and fit an eternity of emotion into one instant using parenthesis, Cummings is a virtuoso of innovation. It is the novelty of expressing intense emotions in the present moment that makes him a poet worthy of high merit. Artists seeking the present moment have only increased since the introduction of his strange and wonderful poems.

Whether or not Cummings’s poetry is appealing to a particular reader, the influence of E.E. Cummings on the future of poetry due to his visual style, command of vocabulary, and innovation cannot be denied. We see it in the relaxing of grammatical rules within the realm of poetic license. We see it in the stream of consciousness writing of Jack Kerouac. We see it in the eccentricities of Bjork’s music. It is true that poetry was not the same before Cummings, and is forever changed after him. He has not always had critics on his side; in fact, he has often been the target of harsh criticism. As time wears on, we continue to uncover the scope of his ingenuity. With the shock of his commas, periods, and colons wearing off, critics are turning a more serious eye to his work and are discovering the layers and depth of meaning in the poems themselves. Perhaps the critics are just beginning to catch up with the vision of E.E. Cummings.

Works Cited
Baum, S. V. 'E.E. Cummings: The Technique of Immediacy.' South Atlantic Quarterly 53.1 (1954): 70-88.
Cummings, E. E. 100 Selected Poems. New York: Grove Press, 1954.
Cummings, E. E. Selected Poems. Ed. Richard S. Kennedy. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1994.
Johnson, Robert K. “Somewhere I Have Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond: Overview.” Reference Guide to American Literature, 3rd ed. Ed. Jim Kamp. New York: St. James Press, 1994. 960-1.
Friedman, Norman. (Re)Valuing Cummings: Further Essays on the Poet, 1962-1993. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996.
Kirsch, Adam “The Rebellion of E.E. Cummings.” Harvard Magazine 107 (2005). 14 Nov. 2005. .
Monroe, Harriet Flare and Blare. Jan 1924. Online. 15 Nov 2005.
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