Wednesday, September 21, 2011

"next to of course god america i" by e.e. cummings - Structure

"...even deafanddumb they sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum..." Two marks of punctuation. This poem counts as "something annoying." But in all seriousness, why do this? Why does the author exclude punctuation? One effect I feel when studying the poem is a feel of rambling. I see this person as an informed rambler who knows that most people who hear him won't listen, or won't understand. That's my shallow observation of the poem. My deeper look is that the syntax reflects what the speaker sees as the American people's blind acceptance of the American way. Americans just jump into anything for their country. Even the "deafanddumb" would go straight into war for America. They don't go into activities thinking. They simply jump into an activity, "who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter," and don't even realize that "they died."

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