SOURCE: Kennedy, Richard S. “Jeers, Cheers, and Aspirations.” In E. E. Cummings Revisited, pp. 68-83. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994.

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 faced personal problems of such gravity that they brought about a change in his personality. It all began in 1918 when he fell in love with Elaine Thayer, the wife of his best friend. The Thayer marriage of 1916 had been in trouble for some time, a situation made clear by the fact that the couple now lived in separate apartments on different sides of Washington Square in Greenwich Village. Moreover, Scofield needed to be in Chicago for long periods of time before the Dial headquarters moved to New York, and when he traveled he left his wife behind. Out of genuine affection...