A Apainter A Poet Essay Research Paper

A Apainter A Poet Essay, Research Paper

A Painter as a Poet

Tammie K. Hamming

Period 2

& # 8221 ; A painter as a Poet & # 8221 ;

ocular

Bachelor of Arts

stract

symbolic

in

tense ( an

imated )

spo

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tanious

Imaginative

ailment

U ( strative

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Each of these words could easy depict the fervent brushstrokes on a painters

canvas. However, it is the passion of E.E. Cummingss poetry that they are meant to show.

The words and designs of his plants embody the same breathless quality contained in

modern art. It is no surprise that he was an open-minded critic, attentive perceiver, inspired

participant, and devoted lover of assorted art signifiers besides his celebrated poesy. The

constructs of unprompted creative activity which are apparent in art are besides evident in Cummings & # 8217 ;

verse forms. From the first publication of his plants to the last they have remained free of

restricting syntactic and stiff guidelines. The exact manner an impressionist painter may utilize

potent colour to convey the kernel of his paining ; Cummings uses graphic words to pull

the reader and do their subconscious experience his point before their head understands it.

The usage of this rare technique is how he has originated a little miracle in each person

verse form. By achieving a comprehension of Cummings & # 8217 ; relationship to art, a reader can be

illuminated with a heightened regard for his unique and bestiring poesy.

In 1945, Estlin Cummings wrote this winsome duologue between himself and a

conjectural interviewer:

& # 8221 ; Oh yes, one more inquiry:

where will you live after this war is over? & # 8221 ;

& # 8221 ; In China as usual. & # 8221 ;

& # 8221 ; China? & # 8221 ;

& # 8221 ; Of class. & # 8221 ;

& # 8221 ; Whereabouts in China? & # 8221 ;

& # 8221 ; Where a painter is a poet. & # 8221 ;

It playfully expresses his sense of art as a individual, indivisible class. During his life-time,

from 1894 to 1962, he did non give to any boundaries and promoted the intermingling of

different artistic mercantile establishments. That mentality is what instigated his authorship of the concert dance, & # 8221 ; Tom & # 8221 ;

based on Uncle Tom & # 8217 ; s Cabin, a aggregation of his wood coal, pencil, and H2O colour images

entitled CICPW, Eimi, a diary of his trip to Soviet Russia, and Anthropos: The Future

of Art. These other exceeding beds to his originative mastermind are revealed in his poesy in

many ways. Finding them enables the reader to hold with his mention to himself as & # 8221 ; an

writer of images and a draughtsman of words & # 8220 ; .

E.E. Cummings was cognizant of the inevitable defeat readers may digest while

analyzing the first page of his last volume of poesy, 95 verse forms. With that premise in

head, he issued a warning: & # 8221 ; Watch out! This verse form is non for the fainthearted. It will non

output to those who simply want their biass caressed. Open up! & # 8221 ; This unconventional

piece looked as follows:

cubic decimeter ( a

lupus erythematosus

af

fa

ll

s )

one

cubic decimeter

iness

Immediate statements arose once it was exposed to the populace in 1958, because every bit far as

critics were concerned, it didn & # 8217 ; Ts say anything. Its critical intent was non to advance certain

sentiments or ideas on solitariness. Alternatively, it was meant to go forth the reader with a

nostalgic feeling of it. The artistic design it forms on the page is an entity of mastermind in

itself. From the & # 8221 ; L & # 8221 ; to the & # 8221 ; iness & # 8221 ; the agreement of letters is like that of a drifting foliage.

Cummingss has non deepened or extended the actual significance of the foliage falling, alternatively, he

has added to it a ocular quality that is entirely aesthetic. He has used the black print of a

typewriter to & # 8221 ; pigment & # 8221 ; the image across the page. It is much like a sculpturer & # 8217 ; s masterpiece

which evokes a feeling without speech production of it. For illustration, & # 8221 ; The Thinker & # 8221 ; by Paul

Rodin, even without the disclosure rubric the bronzy embodiment of a pensively posed adult male

suggests the thought of thought. Basically, Cummings has indulged the readers & # 8217 ; imaginativeness

by stand foring solitariness with ink and leting their ain perceptual experiences to find any

farther values.

In Pablo Picasso & # 8217 ; s pictures Cummings recognized a position that was every bit

as fresh and personal as his ain. In a poetic testimonial to this great modern-day creative person,

Cummingss voices his ain aesthetic every bit good as Picasso & # 8217 ; s it begins:

& # 8221 ; Picasso you give us Thingss

which

bump. . . & # 8221 ; ( Poems 1923 & # 8211 ; 1954 )

Cummingss continues by praising Picasso & # 8217 ; s ability to overstate the natural beauty of the

universe and go forth what is obvious and conventional vague. . .

& # 8221 ; you make us shriek

nowadayss ever

shut in the deluxe shriek of simpleness & # 8221 ;

This ebullient show of words describes the same technique Cummings uses in his

poesy. Just as Picasso has courageously graced the faces of portrayals with merely one oculus,

Cummingss has written with an abstract originality. Both, as Cummings & # 8217 ; last line

concludes: & # 8221 ; hue signifier genuinely & # 8220 ; .

This to accomplish true signifier has led Cummingss to compose about all facets of life & # 8211 ; even

what is unmistakably ugly. Hi

s realist belief was, in fact, that beauty depended on its

coexistence with ugliness. Cummings says, in Poems 1923 & # 8211 ; 1954, that the universe will lose

something of import if & # 8221 ; badness is non felt as bad & # 8220 ; . This is why he could dauntlessly convey

to life that which in society, was merely whispered behind closed doors. An case is a

verse form from Poems 1923 & # 8211 ; 1954 which concerns a bibulous adult male throwing up in the

public toilet of a eating house:

& # 8221 ; a ) glazed head layed in a

urinal. . .

somewhat to vomit to

justly dice. . . & # 8221 ;

Amidst the less than calm image, there is a serious deepness of humanity rendered. The

lyrical words blatantly expose the ugly, go forthing Windowss unfastened to contrast it with

stainless beauty, such as:

& # 8221 ; dark & # 8217 ; s speechless carnival

the picture of the dark

with meteors. & # 8221 ;

The pressing belongingss of pragmatism in art apply to Cummings & # 8217 ; poesy as good. The

attempt to enter the universe without vacillation, exactly as it is seen, can be detected by

look up toing the work of realist painters. Cummings has besides presented the position in his

verse forms as if they had merely outright occurred. A couple illustrations of this are the

opening stanzas in two of his Viva verse forms:

& # 8221 ; if you and i rousing

discover that ( somehow

in the dark ) this universe has been

Picked, like a piece

of trefoil from the green hayfield of clip. . . & # 8221 ; ( Viva LXI )

& # 8221 ; a light Out )

and first of all froth

– like hair splatters wrinkling pillow

following everyplace hidinglyseek. . . & # 8221 ; ( Viva XLIX )

The inclination he had to compose in the heat of each transient, populating minute is what gives his

plants their verve.

Cummingss has explored creatively with his realist urges. He has ever found

new ways to pull the reader in closer to the fleeting incident which he has written of.

This ingeniousness has led him to ignore many regulations of cardinal grammar, an

illustration is his usage of atomization. His poetic manner has been associated with the

separation and deconstruction of words and sentences. A valid case is his manner of

overstating the word & # 8221 ; soft & # 8221 ; by typing it as follows:

& # 8221 ; so

! degree Fahrenheit!

T. . . & # 8221 ; ( Poems 1923 & # 8211 ; 1954 )

The isolation of the & # 8221 ; so & # 8221 ; gives the reader an unconscious innuendo of so soft. Equally

as effectual are the exclaiming marks around the & # 8221 ; f & # 8220 ; , they cause an intensification in

articulating the missive and a elusive metaphor for the word itself.

Cummingss has made character studies of the 20th century. One thought

divulged in his verse form is gesture. His success at capturing the construct of birds fliting,

autos whining, aeroplanes taking off, and a immensely increasing population is an of import

portion of his plants. Just as an creative person can be dissatisfied with the mirror image he may hold

produced of a landscape, Cummings was dissatisfied with merely saying that which

existed around him. Like an creative person who endeavors to demo action within his scenery,

Cummingss strives to transfuse motion within his Hagiographas. Both are efforts to turn out the

plants map. Merely by briefly scanning one of his poesy books, the oculus is attracted to his

most irregular motion portraitures. In No Thanks, poem figure 46, Cummingss forces

the reader to non merely read, but besides see the motion of a bird against the Sun:

& # 8221 ; swi (

across! gold & # 8217 ; s

roundly

) ftblac

kl ( ness ) Y

a & # 8211 ; gesture upo & # 8211 ; nmotion

Less?

thE

( against

is ) Swi

mming

( w-a ) s

bIr

vitamin D

It generates speed by the sudden parenthetical breaks. The deficiency of clear,

grammatical sentences leads the reader to believe the voice is about smitten speechless and

bumbling to explicate the unpredictable sight he is witnessing.

The deficiency of restraint in non boxing his verse forms like traditional, fourteen-line

sonnets allowed Cummingss to endlessly happen new ways to get the better of repression.

Romantically, he stated this at the terminal of one of his Is5 verse form by asseverating:

& # 8221 ; Who pays any attending to the sentence structure of things will ne’er entirely snog you. & # 8221 ;

He was much like an creative person who has surrendered the colourising book outlook. When a

yearling draws in a colouring book he will necessarily take his crayon outside the lines, and

even careen wholly off the page. At the age of five or six nevertheless, that same kid will

strive to shadow inside the preexistent image and will hold accepted society & # 8217 ; s matter-of-fact

attack to art. In the fashioning of his poesy Cummings has utilized the yearlings

technique. That is what makes his works emanate a uninhibited and even somewhat

rebellious appeal. His poetic floridness proves that sometimes alteration is the lone thing

stable. Merely as art during the Renaissance period, his composing manner was in changeless phases of

metempsychosis.

1. Cummingss, E.E. Complete Poems 1913 & # 8211 ; 1962

New York, NY: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich, Inc. 1968

2. Cummingss, E.E. Viva

New York: Liverright

1931

3. Marks, Barry A. E.E. Cummingss

Boston: Twayne Publishers

1964