Edward Estlin Cummings - Research Paper Example

Poet Research Paper Introduction Edward Estlin Cumming is one of the most popular and also widely anthologized poets of the twentieth century due to his controversial and innovative verses. His work celebrates the individual, erotic and familial love. Frequent targets of his scathing and humorous satires were mass psychology, conformity and snobbery. This paper covers his history of his entire life including early life, his education, late life and his literal career life. It also critically analyzes some of his poetic works. Early life (Biography) Born from a middle class family, Edward Estlin Cumming was born in the town of Massachusetts on October 14, 1894. He was named after his father although he was called by his middle name by the family. His father was a successful man as once he was a professor of Sociology and political science at the Harvard University before proceeding to become a renowned minister of a church located in Boston. This gave Cummings the opportunity in education and development as compared to other children because his father knew the value of education, therefore, doing all he could to provide the opportunity to his children. Cummings spent most of his time with his mother Rebecca s and sister, Elizabeth as they were the ones closets to him. This was when his destiny in poetry was predicted because he did a lot of writing as directed by his mother. In addition, he started writing poems under the watchful of his mother who directed on him on things to do and things not to do. He was a smart boy, and his mother encouraged him to write more poetry everyday. His home environment encouraged his poetic attitude as he had the opportunity to be affiliated with philosophers like William James and Josiah Royce who were family friends. Cummings went a head with his education and graduated from the Harvard University in 1915 with a certificate. Cummings from an early age studied Latin and Greek, and this explains his affinity for later works like XAIPE which is a Greek word meaning “Rejoice”, “Anthropos” a Greek word meaning “human” and “Puella Mea” a latin word “my girl”. In his early career, Cummings once served as an ambulance driver, served a prison sentence for three months on the suspicions that he was a spy. This was when he started active participation into his life long career of writing and composing poems. Later life (Biography) Cummings attended Harvard University where he got a B.A. degree in 1915 and proceeded to obtain his Masters for English and Classical studies in 1916. Cummings labored on the newspaper of the school alongside Dos Passos and S. Foster Damon who were fellow Havard Aesthetes. During his final year at Havard University, the influence of writers such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound was so great. He graduated magna cum laude in the year 1916, delivering a commencement address that was controversial entitled “The New Art”. This is the speech that gave him the first taste of notoriety since he was able to give a false impression that Amy Lowel, the well-liked imagist poet whom he so admired was “abnormal”. These chastised Cummings in the newspapers. He turned to poetry as he was ostracized because of his intellect. On September 21, 1917, he and his friend William Slater Brown got arrested as they were suspected of espionage. They both expressed anti-war views openly, and Cummings specifically talked of his lack of hatred towards the Germans. They were detained in a military detention camp where they languished for three and half years. He was released from the camp on December 19, 1917 due to much intervention from his father who was politically connected. He returned to United States in the year 1918. Later he was taken into the army where he served at the 73rd Infantry Division at the Camp Devens, Massachusetts until 1918 November. In 1921, he returned to Paris where he remained there for two years. He later moved on to take his new job in New York City where his role was to write business letters. Throughout 1920s, he worked with The Dial, the American literary journal and through the inspiration of Apollinaire, they were written in the new style of poetry. He wrote his experiences about the war in 1922 and titled it ‘The enormous room’. Cummings travelled to many parts of Europe meeting many people among them Pablo Picasso. He travelled to Soviet Union in the year 1931 where he recounted his experiences in Eimi which was published after two years. He was able to travel to Mexico and Northern Africa where he worked as a portrait artists and essayist for the Vanity Fair magazine from the year 1924 to 1927. Cummings married Elaine in 1924 to raise a daughter, Nancy. Unfortunately, the duo divorced shortly after the marriage leading to Cummings dedicating his life to life to work and prayer. Cummings married a second wife in 1929 but divorced after a few years in 1932. Cummings were awarded various awards for his exceptional works like honorary seat as a guest professor amongst other that he won from his works. During the last years of his life, Cummings spent his life traveling around the world, fulfilling speaking engagements. The better part of his later life was spent at his home located in New Hamshire. Cummings died at the age of 67 in 1962 in North Conway, New Hampshire from stoke he suffered. Literary career Cummings significantly succeeded in his literary career as has more than two thousand nine hundred poems linked to his credit. He participated in various other related writing like participating in writing of various autobiographical novels, plays and essays used by both scholars and students for different purposes. Much of his work is based on tradition. Many of his poems are mainly sonnets though with a modern twist and occasionally he made use of the acrostics and blues form. The poems of Cummings often deal with the themes of love and nature and the relationship of the individual to the world and the masses. These poems are mostly rife with satire. His work normally shows an idiosyncrasy of syntax or rather a way of arranging words that are individual into sentences and larger phases. His work was mostly influenced by modernists such as Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound and was drawn upon imagist experiments of Amy Lowell. He was later exposed to surrealism and Dada by his visits to Paris which permeated his work in return. He initially relied on allegory and symbolism and once used metaphor and similes. Some of The Cummings popular poems do not involve much punctuation or typography but most importantly carry his unmistakable style in impressionistic and unusual word order. However his satirical aspect to his work drew praise and criticism. He attacked the mass mind, the conventional patterns of thought and the restriction of the society on the free expression which were born of his commitment to the individual which was strong. In his no lectures that he delivered at the Harvard university as a lecturer, he made it clear “so far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was, is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality”. Cummings achievements obviously deserve an acclaim. This is because he was able to establish poem as a visual object. He also promoted sheer playfulness with the use of language. Despite an abundance of criticisms and second-rate limitations, his work of poetry continues to delight, amuse and provoke. Three examples of poems produced by Cummings are: 1. Erotic poems The erotic poems are full of explicit sexual imagery. At the back of the book it is written “many years ago the prodigious and famously prolific E.E. Cummings sat in his study writing and thinking about sex”. This sound interesting to many and hence make it one of the most read books. For example; in the poem “i like my body”; “i like my body when it is with your body. It is quite a new thing. Muscles better and nerves more. i like your body I like what it does. i like its hows. I like to feel the spine…..” (lewis 2011) This was an unusual book with so many omissions like introduction, forward and afterward. The book does not introduce the contents neither does it provide segment the poems. Included in the poems are line drawings. For instance in the poem of “I like my body” there are line drawings of bodies in a state of romance. 2. Tulips and Chimneys, 1923 This is a collection of poems and they present a nostalgic glance at his childhood. Some of the poems like “O sweet sponteneous” dwells on the nature which cannot be appreciated through philosophy, science or religion but only nature. The “chimneys” are a sonnet that identifies narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy and stagnation that he saw in the society surrounding him 3. Xaipe: Seventy-One Poems, 1950 The book contained two poems that provoked people. The poems were based on prejudice Cumming’s main aim was to show how derogatory words may cause people to view others as stereotypes rather than seeing them as individuals. Critical Reviews (3 critics different each of poems on a literary career) Omissions (Erotic poems) The book was published without preface, contents page, forward, preface and afterward. It did not also have an introduction and section dividers to indicate poem groups. It did not also inform the time period and the context of the poems Controversy (Xaipe: Seventy-One Poems, 1950) In his collection Xaipe: seventy-one poems, Cummings published some two poems that caused outrage in some of the quarters. He failed to consider the suggestion of friends to withdraw them by insisting that they stay. The poems had touched on prejudice which made people see others in the form of stereotypes rather than seeing them as individuals. Readers were hurt by the words and the Jews living in the aftermath of that Holocaust, felt that the Cummings words were antisemic despite their purpose. For example:: “one day a nigger Caught in his hand A little star no bigger Than not to understand “I’ll never let you go Until you’ve made me white” So she did and now Stars shine at night. And A kike is the most dangerous machine as yet invented by even yankee ingenu ity…..” (poemhunter.com) Tulips and Chimneys, 1923 Cummings’ work did not act according to the conventional combinatorial set rules which generate typical sentences of English. For example “they sowed their isn’t”. in the early part of the century, his readings of stein may have probably served as a springboard that lead to this aspect of artistic development. In the poem “kitty”. Sixteen, 5’ 11’, white, prostitute: ‘…ducking always the Touch of must and Shall, Whose slippery body is Death’s littlest pal,…..” (tumblr, inc) His work is more stylistically continuous with that of steins than with any other writer or poet. His work contains misspellings that are intentional and incorporate spellings that are intended to represent specific dialects. V. Analysis of a selection Xaipe: Seventy-One Poems, 1950 The plot This book has some poems where Cummings was commenting on prejudice. He also tried to describe how words of derogatory nature caused people to see one another as stereotypes instead of individuals. Themes in this book include the England Transcendentalism, English Romanticism and Prejudice. Figurative Language used by Cummings included the drawing from burlesque, the circus and the avant-garde Tulips and Chimneys The plot The Tulips gives a glance at Cummings childhood. He revels nature that cannot be appreciated through philosophy, science or religion but through senses. He also describes the stagnation and narrow-mindedness seen by Cummings in society Theme within this book is modernism. Figurative Language include the Tulips, Chimneys and Cambridge ladies who live in Furnished souls Vi. My Impression I admire the work of Cummings. He emerged one of the best writers because he demonstrated a very strong interest in poetry and art from an early age. He persevered the arrest and detention and enjoyed what he did despite criticisms. His books communicated about important themes like individual against society, government and all forms of authority. He also made his stories memorable whilst at the same time made him a great story teller. Conclusion Cummings’ stories are poetry due to his simplicity in his writing style using simple sentences regardless of this style being irritating to many. Cummings does a magnificent job of capturing scenes. Poetry has many forms and some will like your work whereas some will criticize it but what is important is the style and message. Works Cited Edward Estlin Cummins 45 poems: PenterHunter.com – the world’s Poetry Archive retrieved on March 14m 2013 from Baum S (1962). E. E. Cummings and the Critics. East Lansing: Michigan State UP,. Barry A (1996). Pound / Cummings: The Correspondence of Ezra Pound and E. E. Cummings. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, Isabelle A. (2002) E. E. Cummings, ou la minuscule lyrique. Paris: Belin,. Karen A. (1996) "Sex and the Single Engine: E. E. Cummings' Experiment in Metaphoric Equation," Journal of Modern Literature 20 254-258. Lewis A. Only Yesterday (1931). An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties. New York: Harper & Row / Perennial Reid B. (1995 . A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe. New York: Oxford UP. Tiller G.H. Review of E.E. Cummings,Erotic poems: Norton (2010). Poemhunter.com. Poets: Edward Estling Cummings. Retrieved on 5th April 2013 from: www.poemhunter.com/edward-estling-cummings/biography Lewis W (2011). e.e. cummings’ Electric fur: Elephant Journal. Retrieved on 5th April 2013 from: www.elephhantjournal.com/2011/01/01/sex-poems-110-ee-cummings-electric-fury/ Tumbrl, inc. tulipa and chimney: e.e. cummings. Retrieved on 5th April 2013 from: www.tumbrl.com/tagged/tulips%20and%20chimneys Read More