E E Cummings Essay, Research Paper

Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 14th, 1894. He was a poet, playwright, prose writer, and painter whose vision found embodiment in an array of artistic devices, where typography, punctuation, grammar, syntax, diction, imagery, and rhythm were often pushed to their limits.

E. E. Cummings received his B. A. and M. A. in English at Harvard University in 1916. He volunteered for the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps in France during World War I. He was arrested and sent to a detention center for three months by the French censors because of some letters he sent home, criticizing the conduct of the war. The prison-camp became the basis for his first published book, The Enormous Room, one of the best American books to come out of that war. Shortly after the 1918 Armistice, Cummings was drafted into the army. He depicted military life satirically in such poems as “I sing of Olaf glad and big.”

After the war, Edward devoted himself entirely to his writing and painting, publishing 11 books of poems and a posthumous volume appearing the year after his death. All the books are collected in Complete Poems 1913-1962. He died on September 3rd, 1962. Many of his poems are still famous today.