next to of course god america i

e. e. cummings

"next to of course god america Ilove you land of the pilgrims' and so forth ohsay can you see by the dawn's early mycountry 'tis of centuries come and goand are no more what of it we should worryin every language even deafanddumbthy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorryby jingo by gee by gosh by gumwhy talk of beauty what could be more beaut-iful than these heroic happy deadwho rushed like lions to the roaring slaughterthey did not stop to think they died insteadthen shall the voice of liberty be mute?”

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

e. e. cummings, 1926

ABABCDCDEFGFE

G

How does it work? form, structure

• Use of sonnet conventions

– 14 lines

– Love (of a sort)

– 10,11,9 beats per line, cyclically.

– Octet (quatrain x 2), sestet (tercet x 2)

– abab cdcd efg feg rhyme scheme

• Why does line 12 have 12 syllables?

• Why does line 13 scan as a regular iambic?

How does it work? language

• Why does it use quotes?– Who is speaking? – How do we perceive them, and why?

• What is the effect of the flow of unreflective clichés the voice of the poem uses?

• How many abstractions are used? To what effect?

• What do you make of the unusual grammar, punctuation, capitalisation?– Is it intended to make us take the speaker seriously, or

otherwise?

What is this poem about?Ideas, themes, attitudes

• What are its ideas, and its approach to them?– Patriotism– Satire– Mockery and cliché – Pastiche and patchwork as a technique

• What is the significance of the date?• What is the argument of the poem?

– The speaker of the poem links i, god, america, thus trying to connect their own ambition, religion, and patriotism.

– The last line confirms Cummings’ view of their jingoism - why does the speaker ‘drink rapidly’?

– The tone of the whole poem suggests that Cummings is opposed to nationalistic hubris

– he had seen what modern warfare could do and did not want America to make the same mistakes as Britain, France and Germany.

Intertextual reference

• The poem makes copious use of fragments drawn from other texts.

• What does this presentation of the speaking voice as fragmented, repetitious and unoriginal do for our understanding of cummings’ view of them?

• Explanations of some but not all of the textual references follow.

My country, ‘tis of thee

One of the unofficial national anthems of the United States

before the adoption of “The Star-Spangled Banner" as the

official anthem in 1931

My country, 'tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing;

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims' pride,

From ev'ry mountainside

Let freedom ring!

"The Star-Spangled Banner"

• The national anthem of the United States. • The lyrics come from "Defence of Fort McHenry", a poem

written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key after witnessing a bombardment by British ships in the War of 1812.

O say can you see by the dawn's early light,What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Oh By Jingo!

• a 1919 novelty song featured in the Broadway show "Linger Longer Letty“.

• A big post WW1 hit.

• The chorus is:Oh by gee by gosh by gum by jove

Oh By Jingo won't you hear our love

We will build for you a hut

You will be our favourite nut

We'll have a lot of little Oh By Gollies

And we'll put them in the follies etc

Jingoism

• Nowadays, ‘Jingoism’ is the term often used to describe mindless patriotism.

• Etymology: ‘by jingo' is a long established oath; George Holylake wrote an article in the Daily News on 13th March, 1878 about ‘jingoism’, citing the lyrics of a popular song.

• The chorus was:

We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do,

We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too,

We've fought the Bear before, and while we're Britons true,

The Russians shall not have Constantinople.

Shelley’s ‘Mask of Anarchy’• This is a poem written in response to the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, when British

troops fired on civilians in Manchester• The last three stanzas :

'And that slaughter to the NationShall steam up like inspiration,Eloquent, oracular;A volcano heard afar.

'And these words shall then becomeLike Oppression's thundered doomRinging through each heart and brain,Heard again - again - again -

'Rise like Lions after slumberIn unvanquishable number -Shake your chains to earth like dewWhich in sleep had fallen on you -Ye are many - they are few.

Critical responses

"The chief effect of Cummings' jugglery with syntax, grammar, and diction is to blow open otherwise trite and bathetic motifs through a dynamic rediscovery of the energies sealed up in conventional usage.... He succeeds masterfully in splitting the atom of the cute commonplace."

M. L. Rosenthal

Critical reception

• "Cummings' innovations are best understood as various ways of stripping the film of familiarity from language in order to strip the film of familiarity from the world. Transform the word, he seems to have felt, and you are on the way to transforming the world." –

Norman Friedman

Context

• Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962) was born in the USA into a deeply religious and highly academic family. His father was a professor at Harvard University where Cummings himself went on to study.

• As a student he became interested in modernist poetry and so began experimenting with form and presentation.

• Hence his work’s lack of punctuation and capital letters –and his name’s.

• Despite the strong influence of new ideas, his poems were often concerned with fairly traditional subjects, such as love and God.

• He is one of the best-loved American poets of the 20th century.

Subject matter

• As a pacifist, Cummings went to France with the aim of driving ambulances.

• However, known for their anti-war views, he was arrested on suspicion of spying and spent several months in a prison camp.

• He saw at first hand the consequences of conflict, and came to be suspicious of the unthinking patriotism which can give rise to it.

• [Some people think, though, that World War One was justly fought.]

• After World War One, the US arguably became the most powerful nation on earth.

• Cummings did not want his own country to make the same mistakes as those in Europe.

Writing Task

• How does cummings use language to convey strong feelings in ‘next to of course god america i’?

– What are his feelings about his subject matter?

– How do his various linguistic techniques convey these feelings?