Open AccessE. E. Cummings: From Parenthesis to Personality (Part II)
Author(s) -
Uroš Mozetič
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
elope
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2386-0316
pISSN - 1581-8918
DOI - 10.4312/elope.4.1-2.121-134
Subject(s) - diction , poetry , scrutiny , literature , punctuation , linguistics , parenthesis , variety (cybernetics) , modernism (music) , art , philosophy , history , computer science , artificial intelligence , theology
The paper presents the unique oeuvre of E.E. Cummings; who claims an outstanding position in the heritage of American poetry; as a case of Bildungsdichtung. This status is largely due to his highly innovative and iconoclastic approach to poetic composition; starting from his early rebellious endeavours drawing on an astounding variety of non-standard and downright shocking potentialities of the English language (including such peculiar linguistic and stylistic idiosyncracies as drastic changes of the syntactic English word order; shifts at the morphology and word-formation level; unorthodox use of punctuation; extravagant typography and spacing or arrangement of space between the lines; a diversity of meters and rhymes; as well as seemingly eccentric imagery); to his later and invariably maturer poetic diction – the diction of one who has apparently come to terms with the world and his fellow-beings; realising that genuine wisdom resides in the understanding and forgiveness of the inherently fallible human nature rather than in its continuous sardonic scrutiny