Reich Renata English Language and Literature MA, 2nd Year

Game Theory through e.e cummings Poetry

Edward Estlin Cummings is, probably, one of the most unconventional poets of his time. Defined by a total disregard for the rules of morphology and syntax, Cummings poems were, throughout time, either praised by critics or not taken into consideration at all, depending on the critics affiliation to one school of thought or the other. One of the most valuable qualities of e. e. cummings poems is the way he manages to draw the extra-linguistic world into the form of his poems, the graphical way in which the poem is written on paper. Each of his poems is a game, a play of words in the form of a particular graphical representation of the words which make up the poem. Another remarkable aspect of his poems is the fact that he manages to break away from the norms of morphology, syntax and punctuation and still keep a certain stylistic logic and emotional sense to his poems. Cummings is the rebel child of Modernism, while the game he plays with the letters on a page creates new meanings, new feelings and mostly visual sensations which are cast upon the reader as he tries to join the game and solve the puzzle cummings sets forth in each of his poems. One of the most criticized poems in this sense was a poem entitled simply: l(a. Its force comes from its structure, from the way cummings managed to intertwine the letters with elements of punctuation and graphology, only to hide well-crafted metaphors in hidden meanings:

Reich Renata English Language and Literature MA, 2nd Year

l(a
l(a le af fa ll s) one l iness. This poem is made of two distinct phrases. To be easier unwind the secret it holds, it could be transcribed as l(a leaf falls)onelines, in other words, a leaf falls inserted within the first two letters of loneliness. Consisting of just four words, it describes the feeling of loneliness in many ways. First, the graphical representation of the poem suggests the work of gravity, the act of falling; we can almost see the leaf falling. This sense of motion is emphasized by the parentheses, which somehow come in the way of uttering the word <loneliness>. This is suggested by the initial l, the first letter of the poem, and of the noun <loneliness>. Lexically, the strength of the poem derives from the association of a single falling leaf with the feeling of loneliness. Also, the way Cummings decides to separate the l from the rest of the word, oneliness could be considered a new word coined by Cummings: it might be considered the essence of solitude, through separating one from the rest of the word. In the

Reich Renata English Language and Literature MA, 2nd Year

same manner, the initial l can be viewed as the numeral one, thus, we can speak of a certain circularity of the fragmented stylistic and lexical material derived from the fragmentation. This is the most visible characteristic of the modernist movement which can be perceived in this poem: its fragmentariness, characterized by the way Cummings gave birth to new meanings and ideas by decomposing, by deconstructing that which was already known to man. From a stylistic point of view, this deconstruction which gives birth to new perceptions of the near reality is highly paradoxical.