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personification for the poet gives moon and sun human qualities who can sing like human beings. Personification means giving human attributes to a non-living thing.
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Use this checklist to help you read and provide feedback on your classmate’s draft. I identified at least 3 examples of personification. I underlined off-limit words that could be replaced with a more descriptive word.
E. E. Cummings’s Parentheses: Punctuation as Poetic Device. M. B. Parkes, in a groundbreaking book on the history of punctuation in the West, gives these two short examples to demonstrate that punctuation is an object of interpretation: Stop!!! ‘Stop!!’, she whispered.
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‘[O sweet spontaneous]’ by E.E. Cummingsis a thoughtful poem that directly addresses the search for meaning throughout life. The poem touches on the way that science, philosophers, and the religious poke, prod, and squeeze the earth, looking for some kind of reason that they all exist. The search for knowledge goes on, but the earth is never going ...
Lines 1-8
In the first lines of ‘[O sweet spontaneous],’ the speakerbegins by comparing the “sweet spontaneous earth” to the analytical ways it’s been described. Both philosophers and scientists have poked and prodded at the earth with “doting fingers” or “naughty thumb” in order to figure out what the earth is about. This is a way of alluding to the physical nature of the earth as well as the purpose of life. More spiritual investigations are included. Cummings uses the word “prurient” in the first se...
Lines 9-16
In the next lines, the speaker goes on to describe how religions have used the art as well. They’ve gotten down on their “scraggy knees” and used the earth as they saw fit. It’s a source of interest for all parts of humanity and everyone is abusing it differently. Everyone is seeking meaning from nature and moments of life.
Lines 17-27
In the next few lines of ‘[O sweet spontaneous]‘ the speaker adds that the religious would get on their knees and squeeze the earth as though if they just tried hard enough, they would force the earth to “conceive / gods.” This is an interesting way of suggesting that through their praying and force of meaning, they are attempting to find a god in the natural elements of the earth. They’re attempting to force that specific meaning of it just as scientists and philosophers have their own goals...
‘[O sweet spontaneous]’ by E.E. Cummings is a twenty-seven-line poem that is loosely separated into four stanzas. The lines of the poem use alternative indentations and make use of Cummings’ experimentation with grammar. For example, the placement of the comma in “has the naughty thumb.” Cummings’ poem is written in free verse. This means that the ...
Throughout ‘[O sweet spontaneous],’ the poet makes use of several literary devices. These include but are not limited to: 1. Enjambment: occurs when the poet cuts off a line before its natural stopping point. For example, the transitionbetween lines one and two as well as lines seventeen and eighteen. 2. Personification: the use of human descriptio...
Readers who enjoyed ‘[O sweet spontaneous]’ should also consider reading other E.E. Cummings poems. For example: 1. ‘in Just’ – speaks on the beginnings of spring, a concerning balloonman/satyr, and the children he calls to his side. 2. ‘anyone lived in a pretty how town’ – a complex poem that depicts the life and death of “anyone” and “noone”. 3. ...
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- October 9, 1995
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Published in 1952, “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in” is one of E. E. Cummings’s best known love poems. The speaker feels an intense connection to an unidentified lover, addressing the poem to this person and suggesting that everything in life has become infused with their romance.
5 days ago · Use this poem to talk about what Cummings thought of social justice and the plight of marginalized people. Read this within the context of the Great Depression. All in Green Went My Love Riding All in green went my love riding on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn. In this poem, Cummings creates a scene with a knight, horse, dogs, and deer.
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It is important to study Cummings’ poetry from stylistics point of view because he used intentional incorporate phonetic style, intentional misspelling inventive style of compound nouns and irregular use of syntax etc.
