In his poem "next to of course god america i," e. e. cummings satirizes the blind chauvinism that politicians summon from the citizens and soldiers in order to serve their purposes in times of war. This is his point: That patriotism serves only the politicians, not those who die for the country during war times. --Mocking tone
The next line of the poem uses metaphor “thy sons acclaim you glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum” it shows the innocence of the soldiers with “thy sons” and so the speaker shows a sort of frustration when replacing explicit words with “by gory by jingo by gee by gosh by gum”.
'next to of course god america i' seems to be spoken from the heart of E.E. Cummings himself. He removes himself from the poem by using a speaker within a speaker, but the content of the poem directly corresponds with Cummings' life experiences.
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?
to of course god america i / love you’, which essentially means ‘next to God (of course, he comes first), I love America the most’. The poem goes on to summon a number of earlier patriotic poems about the United States, such as Francis Scott Key’s ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ (better known as the US national anthem), specifically the opening line ‘Oh say can you see by the dawn’s ...
Summary Lines 1–4 A secondary speaker, who remains unidentified throughout the work, opens the poem by declaring his patriotism. Identifying himself as both faithful and nationalistic, he says "next to of course god america i / love you."
Bjdonovan50 - Wars are meat grinders taking charging men and blowing them into individual atoms of ash. Generals in the safety of miles keep giving the orders to these poor patriotic lemmings and they leave all those who love them so desperately behind while jumping into the grinders.
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 Americ
A slight change in rhythm as line 9 brings beauty out of the blue, repeated at the end of the line as Cummings splits beaut/iful in two. This not only allows the line to end with a rising beaut- but ties up the full rhyme later on with mute (in line 13).
Such a speech requires gulps of water, to aid digestion, to swallow all those cliches.
And what about the first line, it ends with an i - does the reader stop before going on to the second line which begins with love? Not really. The enjambment (when a line has no punctuation at the end and sense continues on) means the reader should not take a pause but flow on as best they can into the next line.
Cummings joins deafanddumb to make three words readable as one.
Quotation marks begin this poem. Someone is about to speak, is speaking. This could be a speech about God, America, the ego. All three are right next to each other and all three are written in lower case, which is the poet's prerogative but looks kind of odd.
The speaker cuts short the anthemic lines perhaps because he is so used to giving similar speeches he cannot be bothered to finish them. He's trying to get through the speech in one go, get it over as quickly as he can.
O say can you see, by the dawn's early light. The poet's allusion to the anthem is stark and the patriotic musical association is reinforced as line three ends with my and line four begins with country 'tis of - the opening line of a hymn written in 1832 by Samuel Francis Smith:
And this is where cummings’ reference to the ‘heroic happy dead’ who have ‘rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter’ might be interpreted as a criticism of a certain brand of zealous patriotism, which glorifies fighting for one’s country and celebrates the dead as ‘happy’ – assuming they were all ‘happy’ to give their lives in service of their great nation.
Sir Christopher Ricks, the literary critic, made a similar point about great religious works of art risking the charge of blasphemy. The same, we might say, is true of all interesting patriotic poems. You can read ‘next to of course god america i’ by Cummings here before proceeding to our analysis.
The American poet e. e. cummings (as he styled himself) was one of the most linguistically experimental mainstream modernist poets writing in the United States in the twentieth century, and his poem ‘next to of course god america i’ is a fine example of his innovative style.
The poem goes on to summon a number of earlier patriotic poems about the United States, such as Francis Scott Key’s ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ (better known as the US national anthem), specifically the opening line ‘Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light’ , and the patriotic hymn ‘ America (My Country, ’Tis of Thee) ’.
It is also a satire on the type of blind jingoism that distorts otherwise intelligent minds in relation to their country. cummings applies a reductio ad absurdum technique, mocking the way in which people blinded by patriotism can acquire illogical and dangerous beliefs.
ee cummings, a pacifist, was imprisoned during World War One for his supposed disloyalty to America. He was also accused, falsely, of being a spy. After the war he moved to Paris where he wrote satirical poems.
These are broken up by few dismissive words, like, “and so forth” and “what of it”. It is notable that there are fourteen lines — the length of a sonnet.
This is ironic, as sonnets are formal, structured and intelligently witty, whereas this poem is nonsensical gibberish — though of course also extremely intelligent. cummings deliberately makes the poem incomprehensible, like the extreme patriotism he is mocking.
He removes himself from the poem by using a speaker within a speaker, but the content of the poem directly corresponds with Cummings’ life experiences. As a volunteer during World War I, Cummings acquired a bitterness for war which he did not scruple to express. He was outspoken and willing to go against the grain to stand up for ...
After some time of volunteering, Cummings and a friend were detained in a prison camp, as the authorities became suspicious of them, partly due to Cumming’s habit of being rather outspoken about his anti-war beliefs. It is no surprise, then, that Cummings wrote about his anti-war beliefs.
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum. With these lines, the speaker reveals that people of every language, and yes even deaf people have “acclaim [ed” the “glorious” name of patriotism through the “gory details of war”. The use of the words “jingo”, “gee”, “gosh” and “gum” suggest that the speaker believes the gory wars in the name ...
Allisa graduated with a degree in Secondary Education and English and taught World Literature and Composition at the high school level. She has always enjoyed writing, reading, and analysing literature.
Cummings' speaker uses an amusing contradiction that alludes to senseless babbling in line 6, as he speaks of “every language even deafanddumb.” He then proceeds in line 8 to hyperbolically allude to common folk/salt-of-the-earth clichés, sprinkled in his text like field fertilizer; “by jingo by gee by gosh by gum” is his attempt to find the right metaphor for his plain, simple audience, the more easily to appeal to them as a man of the people. His previous allusion contradicts him, however: The speaker, deaf to his audience, speaks to the dumb who cannot reply.
The opening allusions in lines 1 through 3, from "The Star-Spangled Banner” (1814) and “America/My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (1831), are also used in Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963. The whole cloth of cummings’ text, written nearly a century after the patriotic hymns, weaves deliberate deceit, however; it is far from a dreamer’s vision. The orator speaks of the passage of centuries in line 5, adding “we should worry,” but his warning is lost in the flood of his political rhetoric. We should indeed worry if politicians like cummings' speaker retain their powers of persuasion.
In line 9, the speaker asks rhetorically, “Why talk of beauty?” an allusion to Keats’ “beauty is truth, truth beauty,” as he drums up false sentiment for war, alluding hypocritically to the honor of casualties: “what could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead” who, in a mixed metaphor, rush like “lions to the slaughter” rather than lambs. The allusion to the alleged biblical verse of lion lying with lamb -- a phrase that occurs nowhere in Scripture -- has happened already to these warriors; they are lambs to a slaughter the speaker urges upon them.
Cummings’ final allusion in line 13, “should the voice of liberty be mute?” is also a rhetorical question, alluding to the “Voice of Liberty” broadcasts of FDR’s fireside chats before World War II; in truth, the voice of the speaker who feigns a love of liberty probably should be mute. His speech, overstuffed with meaningless verbiage, prompts no thirst for liberty, freedom or the fight for it -- only for a rapidly consumed glass of water.
E. Cummings published "next to of course god america i" in 1926 as part of his poetry collection Is 5, which contained a number of anti-war poems. In keeping with this, the poem satirizes the intense patriotism that many people adopted during World War I.
On the most basic level, the speaker's thirst after ranting about patriotism indicates that something about the speech itself has exhausted the speaker, who tries to recover by drinking deeply. This, in turn, represents the speaker's intense commitment to this particular topic.
One of the poem's most prominent features is the speaker's use of alliteration, which appears in almost every line. The alliterative moments become particularly prominent when the intensity of the speaker's words increases.