E.E. Cummings “next to of course god america i” is a poem about patriotism and the war. The poem starts off with the speaker being someone that is a patriot and feels strongly about America. As the poem progresses it takes a different approach becoming very sarcastic.
On the one hand, the speaker's tone seems sarcastic and deliberately ridiculous, as made evident by the lines, “thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry / by jingo by gee by gosh by gum.” The use of these absurd words suggests that the speaker wants to humorously mimic the way people talk when they become excessive ...
With these lines of 'next to of course god america i', the speaker is again heavily sarcastic. He asks a sarcastic and yet rhetorical question, “What could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead?” In effect, he causes the readers to question the point of patriotism to a dead person.
Examples of Allusions in the Poem "Next to of Course God America...Deceitful Patriotic Allusions. ... Deaf and Dumb Listening, Speaking. ... Keats, Lions and Lambs. ... Should Liberty Be Mute?
'the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls' by E. E. Cummings is about the differences in social classes, ignorance, and reality. The speaker judges the Cambridge women for the fiction they engage in and their lack of interest in the real world. This piece is one of Cummings' easiest to read.
The poem 'i sing of Olaf glad and big' by Cummings is a typical poem based on Cummings's experience in the army. It is an ironic retelling of the torture and death of a conscientious objector during World War I. The character Olaf in the poem was a soldier in another barrack when Cummings was also a soldier in France.
Here's a quick and simple definition: Free verse is the name given to poetry that doesn't use any strict meter or rhyme scheme. Because it has no set meter, poems written in free verse can have lines of any length, from a single word to much longer.
There are thirty-six lines in ''anyone lived in a pretty how town,'' and eight of them are repetitions of or variants on an earlier line. These repeated lines need to do with the record of the seasons, the record of celestial our bodies and precipitation, and the bells ringing all through the city.
The sonnet is a popular classical form that has compelled poets for centuries. Traditionally, the sonnet is a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter, employing one of several rhyme schemes, and adhering to a tightly structured thematic organization.
Literary devices are specific techniques that allow a writer to convey a deeper meaning that goes beyond what's on the page. Literary devices work alongside plot and characters to elevate a story and prompt reflection on life, society, and what it means to be human.
Modernist poetry emerged at the end of the 19th century and reached its apex in the early 20th. An increasingly urban and industrialized society drifted away from the pastoral (related to the countryside) and individualist strains of the Romantic movement that had preceded it.
The sonnet is one of the most enduring poetic forms in Western literature. It consists of 14 lines of rhymed verse, usually in regular meter, such as iambic pentameter (five stressed syllables, each followed by an unstressed syllable).
American poet E.E. Cummings was a declared pacifist during World War I, meaning he excused himself from participating in combat on moral grounds. He volunteered for noncombat service driving an ambulance, but French military authorities imprisoned Cummings for sentiments critical of the war that he and his friend expressed in letters.
Cummings emphasizes how unsensible the soldiers are by comparing them to lions rushing to the “roaring slaughter”. Lions are animals that are known to be highly loyal and prideful. Like the lions, the soldiers go to war with the same mentality of having pride in one’s fighting.
Cummings uses the previous allusion to America the Great to create an ironic effect. He makes the “heroic happy dead” soldiers appear foolish through his alliteration of the three contradicting words. Typically, when one dies, it is a sad and unfortunate event.
The speaker sounds as if he is reciting the patriotic songs he learned as a child. However, the way he says them sounds jumbled and meaningless.
At the end of the poem, Cummings states that the “much kissed”, “fully photographed” “son of man goes forth to war with trumpets clap and syphilis” (21-24).