EMAIL<\/a> | SYLLABUS<\/a> | POLICIES<\/a> | QUESTIONS<\/a> | PRESENTATIONS<\/a> | JOURNALS<\/a> | PAPER<\/a> | EXAM<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Assigned: Cummings, E. E. \u201cThy fingers make early flowers of\u201d (Norton American Lit. 8th. ed. Vol. D 638); \u201cin Just-\u201d (Vol. D 638-39); \u201cO sweet spontaneous\u201d (Vol. D 639-40); \u201cBuffalo Bill\u2019s\u201d (Vol. D 640); \u201cthe Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls\u201d (Vol. D 640); \u201cnext to of course god america i\u201d (Vol. D 641); \u201ci sing of Olaf glad and big\u201d (Vol. D 641-42); \u201csomewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond\u201d (Vol. D 642-43); \u201canyone lived in a pretty how town\u201d (Vol. D 643-44); \u201cmy father moved through dooms of love\u201d (Vol. D 644-45); \u201cpity this busy monster,manunkind\u201d (Vol. D 646).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThy fingers make early flowers of\u201d (Norton Vol. D 638)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Cummings\u2019 \u201cThy fingers make early flowers of\u201d follows the carpe diem<\/em> tradition in love poetry that has been around since ancient times, but in what significant way does the relationship between the speaker and the addressee does this poem differ from the usual one in such poems? What effect does that difference have on the poem\u2019s meaning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. In Cummings\u2019 \u201cThy fingers make early flowers of,\u201d what word do you understand to be the antecedent of the pronoun \u201cit\u201d in the final line, and why so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cin Just-\u201d (Vol. D 638-39)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. How does a child\u2019s way of thinking and manner of expression in \u201cin Just-\u201d help Cummings provide an alternative vision over against an adult\u2019s perspective on life? Moreover, how do you interpret the presence of the \u201cballoonman\u201d in this poem, given that many readers ally this figure with the Greek god of shepherds and flocks Pan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cO sweet spontaneous\u201d (Vol. D 639-40)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. In Cummings\u2019 \u201cO sweet spontaneous,\u201d what relationship do philosophy, science, and religion seek with nature? What answer does nature give to their attentions, and why? How do you interpret the connection between nature and death that is posited from line 19 to the poem\u2019s conclusion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBuffalo Bill\u2019s\u201d (Vol. D 640)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. In Cummings\u2019 \u201cBuffalo Bill\u2019s,\u201d what attitude does the speaker strike up with regard to the famous Wild West showman referenced in the poem\u2019s title, William \u201cBuffalo Bill\u201d Cody (1846-1917)? How do you interpret the poem\u2019s final two lines, which are addressed directly to \u201cMister Death\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cthe Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls\u201d (Vol. D 640)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 6. When you add together the jumble of statements in Cummings\u2019 \u201cthe Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls,\u201d what do you understand about the Cambridge ladies — what kind of lives do they lead, and what sort of thoughts do they apparently think? Why is \u201cCambridge\u201d (as in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University\u2019s location) more charged with meaning than lots of other places?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cnext to of course god america i\u201d (Vol. D 641)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. How does Cummings\u2019 \u201cnext to of course god america i\u201d treat the language of patriotic sentiment — that is, how does the poem create a counter-attitude to the sentiments and phrases that make up all but the final line? What effect does the final line itself have on everything that precedes it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201ci sing of Olaf glad and big\u201d (Vol. D 641-42)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 8. How does Cummings\u2019 \u201ci sing of Olaf glad and big\u201d reinforce its antiwar message? What values does Olaf represent here? What does his oppressors\u2019 behavior suggest about their values? What difference does it seem to make (in the time period referenced by the poem, World War I) that Olaf the conscientious objector is of Scandinavian ancestry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201csomewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond\u201d (Vol. D 642-43)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 9. What qualities in the lover does the speaker respond to in Cummings\u2019 \u201csomewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond\u201d? Moreover, discuss this poem in relation to traditional Petrarchan love conventions — to what extent, for example, does the poet employ Petrarchan hyperbole about his own condition or the quality of the beloved? Or is he doing that sort of thing at all? Explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201canyone lived in a pretty how town\u201d (Vol. D 643-44)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 10. In \u201canyone lived in a pretty how town,\u201d how does Cummings re-cast the ordinary powers of syntax (word order), parts of speech, and the basics of sentence generation (subject-verb-object strings, etc.) to provide insight into how people\u2019s life-patterns play out over time? Moreover, what is the implied narrative in this poem, who are the main characters, and how are they regarded by the others who live in the \u201cpretty how town\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cmy father moved through dooms of love\u201d (Vol. D 644-45)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 11. What understanding of the speaker\u2019s father eventually emerges in Cummings\u2019 \u201cmy father moved through dooms of love\u201d? How is this understanding built up from the poem\u2019s beginning to its end? What is implied about those whom we might take to be opponents of the father that the poem describes — how do they live their lives and treat other people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cpity this busy monster,manunkind\u201d (Vol. D 646)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 12. In Cummings\u2019 \u201cpity this busy monster,manunkind,\u201d what criticism of scientific progress and its supporters is offered, and by what means does the poem convey that criticism? What is the \u201chell \/ of a good universe next door\u201d referenced in the poem\u2019s final two lines?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" E. E. CUMMINGS QUESTIONS FOR E222 AMERICAN LITERATURECSU FULLERTON, FALL 2014 Assigned: Cummings, E. E. \u201cThy fingers make early flowers of\u201d (Norton American Lit. 8th. ed. Vol. D 638); \u201cin Just-\u201d (Vol. D 638-39); \u201cO sweet spontaneous\u201d (Vol. D 639-40); \u201cBuffalo Bill\u2019s\u201d (Vol. D 640); \u201cthe Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls\u201d (Vol. D […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"wf_page_folders":[11],"class_list":["post-791","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4715,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/791\/revisions\/4715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}