Edward Estlin Cummings - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages... 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”. ...
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 ...Download file to see next pagesRead More