By Jessie Sidhu and Liz Abramov E.E. CUMMINGS
Feb 24, 2016
By Jessie Sidhu and Liz Abramov
E.E. CUMMINGS
Edward Estlin Cummings 2900 poems 2 autobiographical
novels 4 plays
Artist as well 1962, second most
widely read poet in the USA (after Robert Frost)
e.e. cummings
Carnbridge, MA 1894 Began writing- 1904 Harvard
1915- B.A. 1916- M.A.
Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound
1917- First Book Eight Harvard Poets
Biography
Named after his father, Edward Cummings
Father-Harvard Graduate Married three times 1932- Married Marion Morehouse
(model/actress) 30 years
Biography
5 months ambulance driver in World War II
Sent to French prison camp Novel: The Enormous Room
Traveled through Europe Pablo Picasso
Elizabethan Song, 18th Century Satire, Pindaric Ode
Buried in Boston, MA (1962)
Biography
Academy of American Poets Fellowship
Two Guggenheim Fellowships
Charles Eliot Norton Professorship (Harvard)
Bollinger Prize in Poetry (1958)
Ford Foundation Grant
Honors
Disordered syntax + typographical disarrangements
Arranged derangement, integers of the word curve of ‘e’, rhythm of ‘m’, astonishment of ‘o’
Word coinage kept already existing root words, joining to them new affixes
Poets Style
Tmesis his signature
Varied use of parentheses
“Visual stanza” not rhyme/ meter, but shape thought
Visual appearance of most poems=based on interest in contemporary art forms
Poets Style
Analysis of words into parts Both syllables and individual letters
Use of space + punctuation marks Comma used where period is expected
Words were literary art If the printer messed up on a word- interfere with
his “arrangement”
Poets style
At early age, most critics thought of him as a potential lyric & satiric poet
Critics believed that his innovative verse techniques & his lyric/satiric talents successfully blended
Structure of poems connected to meaning of poems
Positive Criticism
Thought techniques were: Cheap and shallow not poetic
Style made critics upset, said it was; Unusual and thought style to call attention to itself rather than
to describe a theme Objected explicit treatment of sexuality
Believe style didn’t evolve throughout career Structure drew readers’ attention from actual poem Many critics believed he didn’t develop much as a
writer through his career
Negative Criticism
e.e. cummings
“I am someone who proudly and humbly affirms that love is the mystery-of-mysteries… that ‘an artist, a man, a failure’ is… a naturally and miraculously whole human being… whose only happiness is to transcend himself, whose every agony is to grow.”
Unique poet Original artist Incredible modernist poet of consequence