E.E. Cummings and the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls

E.E. Cummings and the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls.

Photo by Marion Morehouse.

The life of e.e. cummings. Edward Elstin Cummings was commonly known as E.E. Cummings Born October 14 th , 1894 in a liberal household in Cambridge, MA Father was a Harvard professor and Cummings himself graduated with honors from Harvard His parents were very indulgent and encouraged him to paint and write He was an American poet, painter, writer and playwright with over 2,900 poems, 2 novels, 4 plays and multiple essays Regarded one of the most important poets of the 20 th century.

E.E. Cummings, 1938. AP Images.

The Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls by e.E. cummings.

http:// hdl.loc.gov / loc.pnp / cph.3c13649.

Poem analysis. Cumming’s poem was actually a sonnet. His sonnet served as a kind of a satirical jab at the women of Cambridge, the city he grew up and attended college in. His language shows he views the women as vapid. They are “ unbeautiful ” (2) but in more ways than just looks. They have “furnished souls” which shows they are materialistic (1) and “comfortable minds” (2) which means they dare not venture out of their rigid way of thinking. Cummings was a visionary and a modern and I think this shows us just how much their mentality bothered him. He calls the ladies and their daughters “unscented shapeless spirited” (4) and uses no punctuation in order to emphasize just how dull their personalities really are. Whatever charity acts they do come from a superficial place rather than from a heart stirring cause. They live in their own worlds, in a “box, sky lavender and cornerless ” (13) and are unaware that there is anything outside of themselves or that there is a moon that “rattles like a fragment of angry candy” (14). There is a ridiculing tone to this sonnet. You really feel Cummings is condescending these women and that he feels like he lives a much more valuable and meaningful life than they do. He shows that he thinks the ladies put up a front that they are so righteous but that inside they lack substance..

Works cited. Christensen, Paul. "E. E. Cummings: Overview." Reference Guide to American Literature , edited by Jim Kamp , 3rd ed., St. James Press, 1994. Gale Literature Resource Center , link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420002041/GLS?u= lincclin_mdcc & sid =bookmark-GLS&xid=b9a262e0 . Smelstor , Marjorie. “E. E. Cummings.” Critical Survey of American Literature, Dec. 2016, pp. 642–649. EBSCOhost , search.ebscohost.com / login.aspx ?direct=true&AuthType= shib &db= lkh &AN=127950756&site= lrc-plus ..