Have you ever read a poem by E. E. Cummings? If you have, did it seem normal, and did you wonder how he uses Sight and Sound to create meaning? Probably not. Edward Estlin Cummings, long for E. E. Cummings, liked writing poems as a small child. He studied at Harvard University and met Pablo Picasso before working as an ambulance carrier during World War 1. He was born in 1894 and died in 1962 and died at a hospital in North Conway, New Hampshire, after suffering a stroke at Joy Farm, and something about his poems is not normal. But what I am wondering, is how he uses Visual and Auditory Techniques in his poems. First of All, Cummings uses these visual techniques in his poems: Punctuation and word placing. For example, in Document B, he uses …show more content…
For example, in Document C, Cummings uses the word whistles to create the illusion of sound in your head to better understand the poem. He also makes the words “Eddie and bill” really close together like this: “eddieandbill”, indicating to the reader that they have to read faster. Also when he mentions ‘Far and Wee’ the spacing gets larger and larger telling the reader that they have to slow down. Another example is in Document D, he uses the technique of using onomatopoeia which means that he uses words that you hear but in written form. As a result, Edward Estlin Cummings uses optical and aural techniques to help the reader understand the poem. His optical techniques helps the reader have an image in their head to better understand the poem. He also uses his aural techniques to make the reader better hear the story in their head to understand the onomatopoeia/ sound words, for example: Whistles, in the poems. Overall, E. E. Cummings is a great poem writer, but when you read his poems, you might have to look for his auditory and visual to better understand his weird, but interesting,
In the two forms of art, imagery is used to provide an audience with an insight to multiple senses. Carla Starrett illustrates, “Both poems and lyrics
Another technique used is Onomatopoeia it means the use of words that imitates sound. An example of this in the poem is shown by the use of the following word – zipping. “They’re zipping them up in green plastic bags” by using the word zipping in this sentence, helps the readers to associate with the sound of which a zip makes.
The way EE Cummings wrote his poetry is the main reason why he was such a unique poet. In almost all his poems, he talked about the topic of love and lust, but not in an ordinary manner. He used so much emotion and detail in his poems; it would create images in the reader’s head. When he talked about lust, it was very explicit yet beautiful, leaving a mark on the reader. All of these things made his poems very effective, grabbing the reader’s attention and sucking them right in. In conclusion, Cummings’ approach of writing made his poetry very evocative. Another reason why his poetry was extraordinary was because of his unusual grammar and errors. He revised grammatical and linguistic rules to suit
The author uses imagery in the poem to enable the reader to see what the speaker sees. For example, in lines 4-11 the speaker describes to us the
the boy is quite excited and happy that he had hurt the cat that had
Cummings not only uses his poetry to give the reader (or in this case, listener) an image in their mind- he also provides sound, and some of his poems hardly make sense until they are read aloud-much like the visual poems, that can’t be read but instead, seen. An example of this is his poem, “in Just-” he uses pauses to show that the voice could be fading, or that by “far and wee” the voice goes farther. As you continue to read further, he combines words to make it go faster, and he uses assonance to keep the rhythm. Some parts even have made up words, and unlike the leaf poem, paints an image with the words rather than the visual aid of the poem. One word that’s made up is “puddle wonderful” and paints a picture of a muddy, but fresh scenery. Besides words that paint an image, he also uses assonance to make it rhyme- along with other auditory techniques. Referring to his next poem, “O the sun comes up-up-up in the opening” he uses “ ree ray rye roh rowster shouts rawrOO”. This shows animals, instead of using the common sounds like “meow”. You can even try making these sounds (just not in front of normal, functioning people) and it could sound better aloud than in your head. The techniques he uses include onomatopoeia and alliteration, and just as the “in Just-” poem, uses these to create beats and rhythms. Although some of these may not sounds like real words, he still uses them to express and convey the emotions of those
E.E. Cummings is known for his unique use of diction, using nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs as nouns. What examples can you find in this poem? In the poem, “[i carry you in my heart(i carry it in]” cummings followed a nontraditional form of writing when creating his own “grammar rules” with punctuation, capitalization, spacing and pacing. I think that the main purpose of this and his reasoning behind it to diversify the meaning and generality of his poem. I think he was trying to be unique, and different while applying his own individual creativity through writing. For example, he uses a unique form of diction in stanza one when he says, “and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling.” Normally, this would not be worded the way it is, the sentence structure would be stronger and would flow better, however cummings still was able to apply meaning to that line by saying that everything he is and everything he has is because of his love. He also uses nouns in a distinctive way. For instance, he says in stanza three, “which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide.” Soul in this cause would already be considered a noun, however, he is rather using it more of a possession of his own. Cummings has a weird way of placing things within this poem. In most poems, everything is aligned to the left and follows down to the next line but in this poem the start of the second stanza, “i fear” is aligned all the way to the right. I think the purpose of this is to emphasize the fear, he is describing how strong his love is for this person but with love comes fear. By using these different forms of language and his uniqueness of grammar he was able to be different and find a new way for the reader to understand the power within his
To begin, E.E Cummings uses visual techniques to grab attention. In Doc A he uses spacing and also put letters one by one per line, but sometimes he puts two letters on a line. For an example “le” he used spacing, and put the letters two per line for the poem “ falling leaf”. In Doc B, he also uses spacing, and likes to scramble the words.For example “ rpophessagr” which the word is a grasshopper.
First of all, E.E Cummings uses two techniques one of them is visual techniques to create meaning and make poems look like drawings, for example “a leaf falls” in Document A.The poem is like if a leaf is falling down from a tree.And also in the poem the word “loneliness” is spelled for the leaf getting separated from the others.In “the grasshopper jumps” document B is it like a grasshopper leaping
Rhyming, alliteration and repetition are all used to create an atmosphere for the poem so that it is evocative for the reader.
“Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down” (Robert Frost). E.E. Cummings was given birth to in 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he was truly in amazement and true awe with impressionism and cubism. How does E.E. Cummings use vision and hearing to create meaning? That’s one question that can be uncovered if we look beneath the surface, and dig deep to discover the question; How did E.E. Cummings use sight and auditory techniques to create meaning?
Edward Estlin Cummings, commonly referred to as E. E. Cummings, was born on October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a source of vast knowledge and was responsible for many creative works other than his poetry, such as novels, plays, and paintings. He published his first book of poetry Tulips and Chimneys in 1923. Many of his poems are known for the visual effects they create through his unusual placement of words on the page, as well as, his lack of punctuation and capitalization. The manner in which Cummings arranges the words of his poems creates an image in the reader's mind of the topic he is discussing, such as a season or climbing stairs. His visual style also
Cummings” pg.13). Cummings continued to publish volumes of poetry at a rate of approximately one every four or five years (“E.E. Cummings pg.14). The last honor involved giving a series of public talks; published as i: six Nonlecture (1953), they provide a succinct and charming summation of his life and personal philosophy. Two years later he received a National Book Award citation for poems 1923-1954, and two years after that he won the prestigious bollingen prize in poetry from Yale University (“E.E. Cummings” pg.15). (In his poetry he often ignored the rules of capitalization and has sometimes been referred to as e.e. Cummings) expanded the boundaries of poetry through typographic and linguistic experimentation (Frazee, “E.E. Cummings). An avoidance of capital letters and creative placement of punctuation soon became his trademarks. His experimental poetry took many forms, some amusing, some satirical, some beautiful, some profound, and some which did not make much sense (Frazee “E.E. Cummings”). Typical stylistic devices in his work include: running words together; scattering punctuation symbols cross the page; subverting the conventions of the English sentence; intentional misspellings and phonetic spellings and the invention of compound words such as “puddle-wonderful” (“E.E. Cummings”). However, this obvious experimentation is often combined with strict formal structures and traditional
E. E. Cummings, an author known for his various poems and other forms of artwork, wrote numerous works of poetry over a vast amount of subjects. While the subject matter of the poems differ, a few elements of Cummings' style stays the same in virtually all his poems, some of which is important and some of which is not. The fact that Cummings uses enjambment in his poetry is a stylistic trademark that however annoying its use may be is consistent. Other stylistic trademarks of Cummings' poetry are that Cummings has a control over the tone of each of his poems and that each of his poems has its theme located near the end of the poem. While these traits that may not be highlighted in most of the analysis of his poems, each does occur quite
Cummings’ impressive education consists of a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Harvard, in which he graduated near the top of his class. He submitted many of his poems to the newspaper at Harvard, which sparked his interest towards a career as a poet. When his first poem was published, the publisher left all the letters of E.E. Cummings’ name lowercase. Cummings soon adopted this as his own personal trademark. The style of Cummings’ writing was what made his poems so distinctive. No matter what the topic, he always incorporated a lyrical flow to the poem. Cummings “experimented with typography, slang, dialect, jazz rhymes, and jagged lines” (Anderson et al). By exploring the possibilities of poetry, Cummings was able to create poems that have a beat that corresponds with the tone, mood, and theme of the poem.