E. E. Cummings Summary

Biography EssayE. E. Cummings's experimentation with form and language places him among the most innovative of twentieth-century poets. His style eludes specific association with any one modern line. ... Read more

Ranked "among the most innovative of twentieth-century poets," according to Jenny Penberthy in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, E. E. Cummings experimented with poetic form and language to create... Read more

E. E. Cummings's experimentation with form and language places him among the most innovative of twentieth-century poets. His style eludes specific association with any one modern line. He was applaude... Read more

Critical Essay by John Dos Passos [Here's] a book that exists because the author was so moved, excited, amused by a certain slice of his existence that things happened freely and cantankerously... Read more

Critical Essay by David Ray Cummings is one of our society's best haters; functioning as a Juvenalian satirist, he has long attacked our society's worst indulgences in materialism, hypoc... Read more

Critical Essay by Robert E. Wegner For Cummings, self-discovery was supremely important and the only valid motive for writing a poem; it separated his awareness from stereotyped awarenesses, separated... Read more

Critical Essay by Patrick B. Mullen It is generally overlooked that E. E. Cummings had an avid interest in various forms of American popular culture, especially burlesque, circuses, amusement parks, c... Read more

Critical Essay by Mark Van Doren ["X LI Poems"] continues in almost every phase the tradition which Mr. Cummings established for himself two years ago with "Tulips and Chimneys.&#... Read more

Critical Essay by Marianne Moore Style is for Mr. Cummings "translating;" it is a self-demonstrating aptitude for technique, as a seal that has been swimming right-side-up turns over and... Read more

Critical Essay by S. I. Hayakawa No modern poet to my knowledge has such a clear, childlike perception as E. E. Cummings—a way of coming smack against things with unaffected delight and wonder.... Read more

Critical Essay by John Arthos E. E. Cummings is one of the few modern poets who write about beautiful things simply. Much contemporary poetry is concerned with the analysis of states of mind for the s... Read more

Critical Essay by Norman Friedman In the 1920s Cummings was known as a conspicuous member of the avant-garde, an arch-experimentalist, a modernist, and a bohemian. The New Criticism, which was just be... Read more

Critical Essay by Edith A. Everson At the heart of E. E. Cummings' most characteristic work is a keen sense of the mystery and miracle of life. But this American poet has a great deal to say ab... Read more

In the following essay, Everson analyzes E. E. Cummings's multifaceted view of death in his poetic drama Santa Claus, which emphasizes death's destructive and rejuvenating qualities. At ... Read more

In the following essay, Thompson discusses Cummings’s attempt to compress images and words as tightly and succinctly as possible to affect the strongest intensity of feeling upon the reader. In... Read more

In the following essay, originally published in 1983, Friedman reviews E. E. Cummings: The Critical Reception, finding the collection of early reviews of Cummings’s work helpful in gaining insi... Read more

In the following excerpted essay, Kennedy examines Cummings's writing during a particularly difficult period in the 1920s. In the midst of his efforts to publish between 1922 and 1925 Cummings ... Read more

In the following essay, Webster examines the effect of Cummings's typographical experimentation on his Romantic themes. Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which c... Read more