Despite the fact that the words modernization and modernity are often used interchangeably, modernism is not the same. While modernization is referred to as a historical process, modernism is a time in global history. The rapid urbanization that followed the transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy marked the beginning of modernism. In search of employment and improved living conditions, immigrants from all over Europe flocked to urban areas. As people from all areas of life began to converge in the cities, many poets and artists found themselves alone and isolated. Poetry written during the modernist era, especially those written after World War I, reflects emotions of despair, anxiety, and disenchantment. (Bradford 120). Modernist poets are also popular for their artistic styles and romantic ideas, opting to approach the language with suspicion. Their approach of the language results in a fragmented sentence structure. The paper examines four qualities of modernism and discusses how the qualities appear in the poetry of ee cummings.
Qualities of Modernism and their application on ee cummings poems
Imagery and Symbolism
Modern theory majorly involves symbolism and is chiefly imagistic. They are usually private in nature. Symbolism can take different forms. It is an object representing another in order to give it a meaning that is much deeper and significant. Imagery, on the other hand, is a figurative or visually descriptive language that appeals to our physical senses. EE Cummings in his poem, Carrying Heart, carrying the heart of another person is figuratively spoken as one cannot carry another person’s heart (Cummings, Firmage, and Dunn 56). However, the speaker’s main point seems to be the idea of carrying the heart of a lover. Cumming’s main idea is further developed by the use of squashing words and parentheses. In the first and second lines of the poem, Cummings starts with the title and the idea of carrying the heart of a lover. The parenthesis is squished with the word “me” to bring a sense of unity among lovers.
Disrupted Syntax and Stylistic Experimentation
Fragmentation is another technique majorly used by modern poets. Cummings scrambled syntax which is a major feature of his avant-garde form of writing. The majority of his poems have a fluid word order. An example where there is a flow in word order include:
If night’s mostness opens
If more than silence silent are more
Flowering than starts whitely births of mind (Cummings, Firmage, and Dunn 213)
As much as the technique is discerning, the reader becomes uniquely engaged with the poem and the writer. The words are replaced to communicate cumming’s impressions, that even the conventions of language do not accept. Cumming’s deliberate negation of the language convention is further observed in the words such as “mostness.” According to Cummings, Firmage, and Dunn (157), he even goes ahead to try other radical techniques breaking words such as in his poem “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r”
Allusion
Modernism poetry is in most cases filled will allusions of all sorts and also accompanied by inter-textual references. Cummings calls the balloon man names such as “goat-footed”, “queer” and “lame”. Goat footed alludes to Greek Satyrs, especially to Pan, half-man, half-goat, the god of nature in Greece and the inventor of Panpipes (Reef 36). When spring reached, Pan blew his pipe and all the creatures, both from the wood and fields came running. Hence, the city scene of cummings reenacts an ancient ritual, and “the queer old balloonman” welcomes a new season that begins a new life and he has been doing every spring.
The allusion by cumming enriches the poem as it enhances its meaning. It suggests that beyond the simple world we see is a more complex one. Something seductive and evil is implied by the goat-footedness. The balloonman has an ominous and peculiar power over children (Reef 36). When he passes, the children stop whatever they are doing to just to see him. On quick though, it is normal for children to run towards a neighbor who sells ballons because children like to play with them. Yet, the allusion to the satyr of Greek mythology by cummings is quite disturbing. Despite it being appropriate to think of Pan as celebrating the beginning of spring, satyrs can have other meanings. The creates that were merrymaking were human like gods but with features of a goat. Ironically, the “wild merrymaking” was of sexual nature (Reef 36). The dictionary describes “satyr” as a woodland creature that has legs, ears and horns similar to a goat and a lecher. Thus, it is the main word to describe the often uncontrollable and excessive sexual desire in a male; satyriasis.
Stream of Consciousness
Stream of consciousness is a speaking style in which a narrator says something without filtering. Words flow out of a person in a similar fashion in which they come from the mind. Brains produce thousands of impressions and thoughts at the same time but it is not difficult to speak or write the exact same things we think about. Hence, stream of consciousness is aimed at imitating a direct cognitive process. The poetry of ee cummings uses stream of consciousness by joining random thoughts and words without a formal syntax. For instance, ee cummings narrates, about his body when it is with another woman’s body (Shinder, O'Keefe, and Taylor 36). He says how it is a new thing and that his muscles and nerves are more and better. He then goes ahead to describe how he likes the woman’s body, how he likes kissing it and stroking it. This narrative describes ee cumming’s internal monologue that is not filtered.
Conclusion
Modernism had a great influence on poetry. Stylistic experimentations such as syntax, and state of consciousness were used by poets such as ee cummings. Symbolism, which is the use of people, objects, actions and places that have different abstract meanings were also used. Allusion was also used by the modern poets who brought a lot of freedom and different experimental forms while rejecting traditional versification.
Works Cited
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Bradford, Richard. Poetry: The Ultimate Guide. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Internet resource.
Cummings, E E, George J. Firmage, and Stephen Dunn. Complete Poems, 1904-1962. , 2016. Print.
Reef, Catherine. E.e. Cummings. New York: Clarion Books, 2006. Print.
Shinder, Jason, Michael O'Keefe, and Lili Taylor. The Poem I Turn to: Actors and Directors Present Poems That Inspire Them. Napierville, Ill: Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2008. Print.
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Shinder, J., O'Keefe, M., & Taylor, L. (2008). The poem I turn to: Actors and directors present poems that inspire them. Top of Form
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