What If?
What if is one of the questions in the world that nobody seems to ever have the answer to. E. E. Cummings has had a life that one can’t help but wonder, what if? What if he hadn’t published those early poems to Harvard? What if one of his three marriages had worked out? What if he never traveled the world to discover his inspiration? But, since one simply can’t make up for the lost time of 56 years without an amazing poet, we have to let our eyes wander his work and experiences of the past. E. E. Cummings published an early selection of poems in 1917 to the collection of Eight Harvard Poets. When E. E. Cummings went to leave the United States for France, he was destined to be an ambulance driver for World War 1. Quickly after, E. …show more content…
After leaving France and moving to New Hampshire, he began to travel Europe. Going on to meet world-renowned artists, such as Pablo Picasso, and poets that fueled his inspiration and originality in his writings. After E. E. Cummings had traveled the world and his peculiar writing style was starting to be accepted, he gained popularity across the world, furthering his interest in writing about subjects people were too afraid to write about at the time. Subjects like activism, society, wars at the time, sex, and young heartbreak. In the poem “If”,” a question of the perfect world is introduced to a society where perfect is achievable. In his poem “If,” E. E. Cummings uses monotonous poetic devices with unparalleled imagery to reflect on how even though the world is ugly and harsh, there is still …show more content…
After starting with the connotation of both freckles and night being negative objects in the world, Cummings moves on to introduce the metaphor of death and time, “If earth was heaven and now was hence” (Cummings 7). The idea of earth being heaven seems beautiful and astonishing, but Cumming’s later goes on to refer to the idea as impossible and out of reach, as if the idea of the present being the past. In this perfect world, Cumming’s plays with the idea of death and time, as if at this point in time, these ideas needed to be fixed. While this metaphor refers to the possibility, Cummings introduces the idea of imagery to the reader by showing the similarity in opposites, “And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee / Things would seem fair” (13-14). The comparison of opposites found in the world makes Cummings’ transcendent writing style come to life. The idea of false equality is also introduced when Cummings mentions “Things would seem fair,” (14) leading to the idea, that things would only look to be fair, and the world would still be in pain. In the end of each stanza, Cummings sues the variation of the same phrase, “I wouldn’t be I.” (6) which is a use of parallelism, showing that we are all the same throughout the poem. In the second stanza, “You wouldn’t be you.” (12) refers to the reader directly showing that in every society, no matter how perfect originality can tear us apart
What if is one of the questions in the world that nobody seems to ever have the answer to. E. E. Cummings has had a life that one can’t help but wonder, what if? What if he hadn’t published those early poems to Harvard? What if one of his three marriages had worked out? What if he never traveled the world to discover his inspiration? But, since one simply can’t make up for the lost time of 56 years without an amazing poet, we have to let our eyes wander his work and experiences of the past. E. E. Cummings published an early selection of poems in 1917 to the collection of Eight Harvard Poets. When E. E. Cummings went to leave the United States for France, he was destined to be an ambulance driver for World War 1. Quickly after, E. …show more content…
After leaving France and moving to New Hampshire, he began to travel Europe. Going on to meet world-renowned artists, such as Pablo Picasso, and poets that fueled his inspiration and originality in his writings. After E. E. Cummings had traveled the world and his peculiar writing style was starting to be accepted, he gained popularity across the world, furthering his interest in writing about subjects people were too afraid to write about at the time. Subjects like activism, society, wars at the time, sex, and young heartbreak. In the poem “If”,” a question of the perfect world is introduced to a society where perfect is achievable. In his poem “If,” E. E. Cummings uses monotonous poetic devices with unparalleled imagery to reflect on how even though the world is ugly and harsh, there is still …show more content…
After starting with the connotation of both freckles and night being negative objects in the world, Cummings moves on to introduce the metaphor of death and time, “If earth was heaven and now was hence” (Cummings 7). The idea of earth being heaven seems beautiful and astonishing, but Cumming’s later goes on to refer to the idea as impossible and out of reach, as if the idea of the present being the past. In this perfect world, Cumming’s plays with the idea of death and time, as if at this point in time, these ideas needed to be fixed. While this metaphor refers to the possibility, Cummings introduces the idea of imagery to the reader by showing the similarity in opposites, “And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee / Things would seem fair” (13-14). The comparison of opposites found in the world makes Cummings’ transcendent writing style come to life. The idea of false equality is also introduced when Cummings mentions “Things would seem fair,” (14) leading to the idea, that things would only look to be fair, and the world would still be in pain. In the end of each stanza, Cummings sues the variation of the same phrase, “I wouldn’t be I.” (6) which is a use of parallelism, showing that we are all the same throughout the poem. In the second stanza, “You wouldn’t be you.” (12) refers to the reader directly showing that in every society, no matter how perfect originality can tear us apart