E. E. Cummings: From Parenthesis to Personality (Part II)

Abstract

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.