O SWEET SPONTANEOUS

EDWARD ESTLIN CUMMINGS

E E Cummings (1894-1942) is an American poet,  who was one of the most radically experimental and inventive writers of the 20th century. E.E. Cummings is not only an American Writer but also a poet, painter, and playwright. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. He is remembered as a preeminent voice of 20th century poetry. A distinctive feature of Cummings's poetry is the abandonment of uppercase letters. During World War I (1914-1918) he was an ambulance driver in France, ultimately spending three months in a French military detention camp on a false charge. After World War I Cummings studied art in Paris. His first volume of poetry, Tulips and Chimneys, appeared in 1923. During the 1920s and 1930s he lived alternately in France and in the United States, finally settling in New York City.

Regarding the style of E E Cummings’ poetry, he rejected most rules of English grammar. Cummings used word positioning in conjunction with other grammatical features to express his ideas about the celebration of individualism, love and the essence of spring.  Other features would include using desired capitalization rather than when appropriate, “incorrect” use of parenthesis and other punctuation.  Cummings’ modernism and artistic experimentalism crowned in a radical poetic language and he created an eccentric (strange) style.  Although Cummings’ poetry can be a difficult read as he writes for a sophisticated audience, his writing is readable through in-depth analysis, thereby creating work that is critically interesting and satisfying to the reader. 

In the analysis of the poem O Sweet Spontaneous Cummings speaks of his love of Mother Earth, and he also displays his disdain of humanity.  He writes that although humankind performs scientific research, pollutes the earth, and even tries to destroy her, she responds to the abuses with the greatest strength and gift of all, life.  His poetic and linguistic techniques make this poem flow as it shapes the images that Cummings wants the reader to mentally see and spiritually feel.  Using poetic literary features of alliteration and assonance, and modifiers, Cummings draws the reader a dark picture of humanity as he presents his unique view of the earth.  The effect of numerous devices demonstrates his linguistic capability creating precision, invention, and deliberation.  Cummings vividly describes the way earth has been mistreated by human beings. We mine it, we pollute it, we destroy it, and yet it answers us with its greatest gift: life. His poetic and linguistic techniques make this poem flow as it shapes the images.

Cummings' poetry is often satirical, highly critical of all institutions - governments, churches, and small groups - that enforce their beliefs on others. He is also critical of individuals who conform to society's mores (behaviors/customs), without thinking of what they are losing, in the naïve (child like) belief that the majority must be obeyed. Cummings' poetry emphasizes the intuitive and emotional sides of self and the belief that the world cannot be fully explained by religion, philosophy, science or any other discipline.

Cummings presents philosophy, science, and theology as dirty old men disgustingly (horribly) attempting to recapture their lost youth. O Sweet Spontaneous simply states that philosophers, scientists, and the religious have used earth for their own wants and needs. Nonetheless, every year earth still gives us spring. A common theme with Cummings is that life goes on, and this poem is another example of that.

This poem is written like many of Cummings' other works. The extra spaces may be there to indicate that it can be seen as part of the old stanza and a new stanza all together, depending on how the reader wish to think about the writing. The same can be said about the interesting line breaks. Through this poem Cummings speaks of his love of Mother Earth, he also talks about how we as people do not always treat mother earth properly. In the second stanza he writes, “fingers of prurient philosophers pinched and poked”, talks about how the fingers of unwholesome people pinch and poke at the innocent mother earth. It is interesting that Cummings refers to mother earth as spontaneous. On one hand mother earth is very predictable and calm. She is very consistent, the same seasons, the same patterns. On the other the spontaneity of mother earth is always changing, constantly growing new things.

In the third stanza Cummings makes the reader feel as if the earth is on big science experiment, constantly being poked by nasty scientist. Although scientist treats mother earth as a research project she takes it in the abuse and still rewards us with the great gift of life. In the next stanza of the poem Cummings writes about religion. He has put religion in the same category as the scientist who poke and prod, just another thing that corrupts mother earth.

O Sweet Spontaneous begins with alliteration and continues its use throughout and he uses assonance in employing phonetic parallelism. This poem furthermore gives importance to enjambed lines. The poem has only one capital letter, one comma, and one period.  Nonetheless, with the use of a misplaced comma and/or period, these significant punctuation markers stress a precise and deliberate thought pattern thereby creating a larger, and more complete unit of thought.  He ultimately blends the old with the new to demonstrate perhaps, that Mother Earth is enduring, while man is a pest.  

The first sound - letter, ‘O’, of this poem is used as a word.  By Cummings’ use of the simple ‘O’ this reader immediately accepted a cry of love. The poet continues the poem with the /s/ full alliteration of sweet and spontaneous. The /s/ begins the second and third word. It also ends the third word and this first line of the poem creates a praying sense/concept. The /e/ of sweet and e-ous of (spontan)eous connects directly with earth. The /o/ sound heard in the beginning is repeated in spon(tane)ous, again in how, then often and finally in doting.  Cummings’ binds these words and sounds to create sound repetition and in doing so creates a loving picture of the earth as Mother Earth. Another point is that by using the adjective spontaneous (the sense of occurring without external stimulus), to describe earth, the reader knows immediately that the earth is an independent entity. 

The term prurient (unwholesome/meaning offensive) is reinforced by the words pinched and poked as those words conjure up unpleasant actions.  And so the reader questions the use of the word fingers when referring to a philosopher as the thought process stems from the brain, not the fingers. Philosopher being a lover of knowledge and fingers being an anatomical term for the digits that extend from the hand set up a nice image as thoughts reach out and point (as fingers point) in a direction.  Cummings’ portrayal gives the reader an intuitive description thereby interpreting the fingers attached to the prurient philosopher which pinched/poked as a negative action against the earth.  With the use of fingers and philosopher the reader finds an abnormal paradigm and this is considered foregrounding, as it is deviant from the way fingers are actually used.  Fingers can pinch and fingers can poke, but thoughts cannot and neither can knowledge. 

Within the third stanza, Cummings again compels the reader to intuitively understand the naughty thumb of science as a negative connotation with yet another parallel.  The naughty thumb works nicely with fingers/philosophers and provides a handsome metaphor.  A thumb does not prod, but a scientist does.  A thumb cannot actually be naughty, but a scientist can be - especially if a scientist is prodding.

In summary, Cummings created a poem that begins and ends in an almost reverent (respectful) tone.  The stanzas that make of the core of the poem are examples of parallelism, as each implies the same irreverence of the earth by humankind, while thinly disguising the poet’s disdain of humanity.  Unlike conventional authors, Cummings enhanced the visual effect and meaning of his poems not merely through word choice, but more importantly through manipulating the actual text of his works.  His use of word coining (devising/creating), the shifting of grammar, the blending of established stanza forms and free verse, flamboyant punning, typographic distortion, unusual punctuation, and idiosyncratic division of words all became “integral to the ideas and rhythms of his relatively brief lyrics.”  Although there have been thousands of insightful, brilliant poets throughout the years, Cummings pulls ahead of the lot with this powerful style of writing.  And in O Sweet Spontaneous Cummings used his talents carefully to inspire the reader that indeed Life Is Good.