A Stylistic Study of the Linguistic Deviations in E. E.
Cummings’ s Poetry
A thesis submitted to
The College of English Language and Literature
Shanghai International Studies University
In partial Fulfillment of
The Requirement
For the Degree of Master of Arts
By Shi Mengchen
Under the Supervision of
Professor Li Xin
October 2012
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I feel greatly indebted to my supervisor Professor Li Xin
for her encouragement and enlightenment in writing Cummings. Her valuable
instruction, suggestion and her detective reading of my draft is of supreme
importance in making the thesis a reality.
Moreover, my heartfelt thanks also go to Professor Jeroen van der Weijer,
Professor Yu Dongming and Professor Li Weiping whose lectures and books
were my source of inspiration.
Last but not the least, I am genuinely grateful to all teachers whose courses
and lectures have been very meaningful and beneficial to my academic study
in the future.
I Abstract
Regarded as the pioneer of experimental poetry, E. E. Cummings’s unconventional
treatment of poetic language has reached unprecedented heights, and has intrigued and
baffled numerous scholars, researches and readers alike. Nevertheless, the very existence
of poetry, like other types of literary texts, demonstrates the significance and value of
interpretation and exploration. The eccentric use of language by E. E. Cummings should be
attributed to his double identity as both a poet and a painter. He was deeply influenced by
the contemporary European visual art, especially Cubism. Most poems he composed are a
perfect blend of the art of painting technique and poetry creation so that they are paintings
in poetry and poetry in paintings. Among them, linguistic deviation is one of the means of
realizing the foregrounding and achieving the aesthetic value.
Chronologically, the thesis begins with a brief introduction on E. E. Cummings’s early life
and later experiences, and continues with a review on the study of stylistics and E. E.
Cummings’s poetry from the perspectives of literary criticism and linguistics. Furthermore,
the thesis discusses the uniqueness of the poetic language and three dimensions of
linguistic deviations as the means of achieving foregrounding in E. E. Cummings’s poetry,
namely graphological, lexical and semantic deviations based on the linguistic deviation
theories of Geoffrey N. Leech with reference to Yu Xueyong’s three-dimensional model
and framework for achieving foregrounding. Finally, selected poems with distinctive
features are analyzed in detail, the themes of which range from four of Cummings’s major
themes, namely love, life, nature and death. The attempt to analyze the stylistic features of
symbolic poetry demonstrates the complementation of linguistics and literature as well as
the interaction between art and aesthetics, listening to the voice echoing from the depth of
poet’s heart and providing reference to the interpretation and appreciation of poetry if
possible.
Key words: E. E. Cummings; Poetry; Stylistics; Foregrounding; Linguistic Deviation
中文摘要
作为实验主义诗歌的先驱者，美国现代派诗人 E.E.卡明斯违背常规
的语言处理达到了无人能及的巅峰，是无数学者、读者心中美丽的困惑。
然而，正如其他文学文本，诠释诗歌的内涵，探究其价值具有深远意义。
卡明斯诗歌语言的非常规处理得益于其诗人与画家的双重身份。深受当
代欧洲视觉艺术，尤其是立体主义发展的影响，其创作的大部分诗歌都
将绘画艺术与诗歌创作艺术有机结合起来，使其诗中有画、画中有诗、
诗画结合、寓画于诗。其中，语言变异是实现前景化的艺术效果，产生
美学价值的途径之一。
本文首先概述了卡明斯的背景与经历，然后从文学批评与语言学角
度综述了国内外文体学研究及卡明斯诗歌研究的成果，基于英国著名语
言学家杰弗里·N·利奇的语言变异理论,借鉴于学勇先生建立前景化实现
模型与框架，从书写变异、词汇变异及语义变异三个层面探讨卡明斯诗
歌实现前景化艺术效果的方法。最后，选取体现上述特点的诗歌进行详
细分析，所选取诗歌涵盖卡明斯创作生涯中的四个鲜明主题，即爱情、
生活、自然和死亡。通过分析富有代表性诗歌的文体学特征，展现了语
言学与文学的相辅相成，艺术与美学的相得益彰，聆听诗人内心深处的
声音，为诗歌文本解析提供参考价值。
关键词：E.E.卡明斯；诗歌；文体学；语言变异；前景化
Contents
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................I
Abstract...................................................................................................................................I
中文摘要 .............................................................................................................................. II
Chapter One Introduction ......................................................................................................1
1.1 Background Information of E. E. Cummings ...............................................................1
1.1.1 Early Life .....................................................................................................1
1.1.2 Later Experiences ...........................................................................................2
1.2 Theoretical Basis, Significance and Structure of the Thesis.....................................3
Chapter Two Literature Review.............................................................................................6
2.1 A Review of Stylistics...............................................................................................6
2.2 A Survey of the Study on E. E. Cummings’s Poetry.................................................7
2.2.1 Literary Criticism............................................................................................7
2.2.2 Linguistic Study ..............................................................................................8
Chapter Three The Uniqueness of Poetic Language............................................................10
3.1 The Eschew from Mediocrity .................................................................................10
3.2 Foregrounding in Art and Poetry ............................................................................ 11
Chapter Four Linguistic Deviation ......................................................................................13
4.1 Graphological Deviation.........................................................................................13
4.1.1 Format of Text...............................................................................................13
4.1.2 Capitalization and Decapitalization ..............................................................14
4.1.3 Punctuation ...................................................................................................15
4.2 Lexical Deviation....................................................................................................15
4.2.1 Affixation ......................................................................................................16
4.2.2 Compounding................................................................................................17
4.2.3 Conversion ....................................................................................................17
4.3 Semantic Deviation.................................................................................................18
4.3.1 Transference..................................................................................................18
4.3.2 Honest Deceptions ........................................................................................19
Chapter Five Analyses of Selected Poems...........................................................................22
5.1 Poems on Love........................................................................................................22
5.1.1 Analysis of “your little voice” ......................................................................22
5.1.2 Analysis of “in the rain-” ..............................................................................25
5.2 Poems on Life .........................................................................................................27
5.2.1 Analysis of “hist whist” ................................................................................27
5.2.2 Analysis of “Paris;this April sunset completely utters” ................................30
5.3 Poems on Nature.....................................................................................................31
5.3.1 Analysis of “stinging”...................................................................................32
5.3.2 Analysis of “mOOn Over tOwns mOOn”.....................................................33
5.4 Poems on Death ......................................................................................................36
5.4.1 Analysis of “if i believe”...............................................................................36
5.4.2 Analysis of “one” ..........................................................................................39
Chapter Six Conclusion .......................................................................................................43
References............................................................................................................................45
Appendix..............................................................................................................................47
Chapter One Introduction
1.1
Background Information of E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings (1894-1962) was the pioneer of experimental poetry in twentieth
century American literature. Being a prolific poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright,
Cummings composed around 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and
several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings throughout his lifetime. What
contributed to his phenomenal achievement in both literature and art were not only his
innate prodigy, but also his upbringing and later experiences. This chapter aims at a brief
summary of E. E. Cummings’ background information.
1.1.1
Early Life
Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father,
Edward Cummings, a Harvard professor of sociology and political science since 1891 and
a Unitarian clergyman later, was extremely well-versed in verbal ability and speech. Ever
since childhood, Cummings developed a strong interest in writing poetry and craved to
become a poet. Rebecca Haswell Cummings, his mother, after noticing that young
Cummings showed great promise, was also supportive and maintained his unique poetic
trait. With a decent family environment, Cummings embarked on the journey of poetry by
exploring to his heart’s content various poetic forms and discarded the conventional
grammar and syntax at an early age.
Young Cummings spent summers with his family on Joy Farm near Silver Lake in
New Hampshire which became a source of inspiration for his poetry composition later on.
In 1911, E. E. Cummings was enrolled in Harvard University. After four years of happy
and fulfilled university life, he graduated magna cum laude. In 1916, he received his M.A.
from Harvard and worked for a book dealer upon graduation after being refused by the
magazine Vanity Fair. In 1917 he joined Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps and went to
1 France.
The ingenious design and shrewd logic of his poems should be attributed to his
scholarly mindset for being a multilingual and five years as undergraduate and graduate
student in Harvard. On the one hand, he attached great importance to logic and scholarly
habit in his writing. For instance, he “had a habit of making vocabulary lists: odd words
used by Shakespeare, useful he came across in miscellaneous reading, and when he was
travelling, necessary or interesting words in German, Spanish, Italian, Russian. ” (Kidder,
1979: 4) On the other hand, he was essentially a man of feeling and took a stand against
modern technocracy as in: “Reason is for others; and those who live by it alone-in which
class reside scientists, politicians, and, at one time or another, nearly everyone else-are
doomed to ‘the trivial torments of ordinary, hum-drum, common or garden life’.” (Kidder,
1979: 2) It was the mixture of reason and feeling in the poet himself that induced the both
intense and delicate styles in his poetry.
1.1.2 Later Experiences
Several major events in his later experiences contributed and affected the
composition of his poetry.
After returning to New York from France where he learned Cubism from European
visual art, Cummings held exhibitions of paintings in New York. In 1923 his first volume
of poetry Tulips and Chimney was published. A year later, he married Marries Elaine Orr
Thayer and divorced her in the next year.
In 1926, his father died of an accident which affected his composition to some extent
as his publication stopped in 1927 and didn’t resume until 1930. He married Anne Barton
in 1929 and separated from her in 1931. Nevertheless, his art exhibitions never ceased. A
year later, he met Marion Morehouse, a famous fashion model with whom he stayed for the
remainder of his life.
In 1947, his mother passed away. Before that, he consecutively published Collected
Poems, 50 Poems and 1*1 and meanwhile exhibited paintings.
In 1950, he was honorably awarded the Academy of American Poets Fellowship. In
the same year, Xaipe, another volume of poetry was published. In 1952, Cummings
2 delivered his first of the nonlectures. Before he travelled to Italy, France and Greece, he
published most of his poem volumes such as Poems 1923-1924 and 95 Poems. The last
volume 73 Poems was published a year after his death in 1963.
Undoubtedly, the divorces he suffered and deaths he witnessed together with the
passage of time contributed to the maturity in his attitudes towards life and his writing of
poetry, made him cherish more about love and what he had for the moment.
1.2 Theoretical Basis, Significance and Structure of the Thesis
The thesis is under the guidance of Geoffrey N. Leech’s linguistic deviation theories.
Being the most significant theory in stylistic analysis, foregrounding is arguably the most
important part of stylistic analysis in poetry. According to Leech (1969: 62) in his work A
Linguistic Guide to English Poetry and Yu Xueyong (2007:27) who developed Leech’s
theories further by constructing a model and framework, the analysis of different varieties
of language can be approached by realization, form and semantics levels. Realization
includes phonology and graphology; form includes grammar and lexicon; and semantics
includes denotative or cognitive meaning. Concerning the foregrounding in poetry, it can
be achieved through linguistic deviation and parallelism. Linguistic deviation is further
divided by Leech into eight categories: lexical deviation, grammatical deviation,
phonological deviation, graphological deviation, semantic deviation, dialectal deviation,
deviation of register and deviation of historical period.
The significance of this thesis lies in the fact that it focuses on the aesthetic value of
visual art achieved through linguistic deviation, particularly graphological and lexical
deviations in hope of enriching the existing researches on similar topics. Besides, the
selected poems to be analyzed in the last chapter are not very frequently touched upon in
previous studies. Therefore, the stylistic study of the linguistic deviation in E. E.
Cummings’ poetry is of academic, practical, aesthetic and artistic value:
To begin with, the thesis is of academic value. It aims at an interaction between
language and literature, namely an anatomy of the poetic language through linguistic
theories. On the basis of Geoffrey N. Leech’s stylistic theories and Yu Xueyong’s
three-dimensional model for achieving foregrounding, the analyses of the poetry from the
3 most popular and preeminent voice of the twentieth century, E. E. Cummings, can on the
one hand enrich and widen the scope of application of linguistic theories while on the other
hand the interpretation of literary texts from this perspective other than literary criticism
can shed more light on the understanding, acceptance and appreciation of literature. It
resembles the mingling of science and art, reflecting the rationality out of the seeming
irrationality while seeking truth from linguistic facts. Furthermore, the thesis is of practical
value. Poems are in essence uses of language. Like other uses of language, they are to be
interpreted and their very appearance in print implied that they have something of
significance to say although they may express an individual or even idiosyncratic
perception. This thesis intends to focus on the analysis of linguistic deviation in E. E.
Cummings’ poetry to explore what lies underneath the surface of the poet’s creative use of
language, revealing the voice and catching the echo of the poet. In doing so, by exploring
the essence through apparent phenomena like solving puzzles and decoding enigmas one
after another, more readers of English literature will come to realize what the poet intends
to say through the extraordinary arrangements and creation of expression. Thus, the gap
between eastern and western cultures can be narrowed and bridged. Last but not the least,
the topic of the thesis is of aesthetic and artistic value. Poetry, with its succinct language,
musical and visual effect as well as profound implications, has remained one of the most
beautiful forms of literature. What distinguishes the poetic language from that of the
ordinary is the increased emphasis on the aesthetics of language and the deliberate use of
features such as repetition, meter and rhyme. It consists largely of literary works in which
language is used in a manner that is felt by the user and audience to differ from ordinary
prose. Poetry may use condensed form to convey an emotion or idea to the reader or
listener, or it may use devices such as assonance, alliteration and repetition to achieve
musical or incantatory effects. Poetry is in itself a kind of art as many poets are painters
and artists at the same time, E. E. Cummings being one of them. The charm of poetry lies
in the intriguing pattern and ambiguity of the language which evokes endless imaginations
and different interpretations so that they can be engraved in the depth of the human hearts.
Moreover, whatever form and techniques utilized by the poets, regular or irregular, they
can by all means strike the chord of the readers with the common real life experiences,
4 feelings and emotions underlying the beautiful verses.
As has been shown above, the stylistic study of the aesthetic value of linguistic
deviation is of academic, practical and artistic significance. The analysis of poetry is like a
thought-provoking journey, transcending time and space with a thoroughly spiritual
communication with the poet, highly inspiring and rewarding to the heart and soul of
numerous readers worldwide from generation to generation. Nevertheless, a great deal of
study and research is to be done to contribute to the stylistic study of English poetry.
The structure of this thesis is as follows: In the first and second chapter the
background research on the lifetime of E. E. Cummings, the study on E. E. Cummings’
poetry and a brief history of stylistics are conducted. The third chapter deals with the
distinctiveness of the poetic language, the foregrounding theory and how it applies to
poetry. The fourth chapter introduces the types of linguistic deviation and how deviations,
as significant means of producing foregrounding, achieve the extraordinary and evocative
effects. The fifth chapter conducts a thorough analysis of selected poems respectively from
four of Cummings’s themes under the guidance of Leech’s theory and Yu Xueyong’s
three-dimensional model for the apprehension and appreciation of literary texts.
5 Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 A Review of Stylistics
The history of stylistics can be traced back to western traditional rhetoric which was
originally utilized mainly for the sake of persuading other people to accept the ideas of the
speaker. Western stylistics can be regarded as a branch of rhetoric. Many ancient Greek
philosophers wrote works on rhetoric, such as like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle,
contributing exceedingly to the development of the discipline. The first well-known
masterpiece in the West was written by C. Bally, the student of the Swiss linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) for a systematic and scientific stylistics analysis.
However, stylistics didn’t appear as an independent academic discipline until the
beginning of the twentieth century. Based on the principles and theories of modern
linguistics, stylistics described all various kinds of texts far beyond the extension of figures
of speech. What stylistics differs from the traditional rhetoric include the following
aspects.
First, the range of the texts to be analyzed exceeds those of the rhetoric. From the
perspective of the domain, stylistics placed emphasis on oral texts and then gradually
switched the focus to written texts. With the constantly rapid development, the discipline
divided into multiple branches. Some featured on literature, others paid attention to science
and technical texts, advertisements, legal documents and so on. Literary stylistics, which is
the focus of this thesis, has enjoyed tremendous flourishing and evolution during the past
few decades. Second, the methodology incorporated during the process of analysis is
far-reaching and thought-provoking. Compared to those of the rhetoric, the methodologies
of stylistics are more profound and systematic aiming at an in-depth analysis on the
functions of various kinds of languages used in different styles and registers for a thorough
understanding and appreciation of the texts. Last but not the least, literary stylistics in
particular is the interaction between linguistics and literature, crossing the boundaries of
two disciplines with theoretical, practical and aesthetic values for exploration.
6 The development of stylistics in China has undergone a long history. Liu Xie in the
South-North Dynasty composed Wen Xin Diao Long, an epoch and groundbreaking
scholarly masterpiece of Chinese stylistics in which differences between several styles and
even methods for evaluation and critique are dealt with. Following the predecessor, many
scholars and professors devoted wholeheartedly to the study of stylistics and the
introduction of basic theories. Wang Zuoliang and Ding Wangdao (1980) wrote An
Introduction to English Stylistics. Qin Xiubai (1991) wrote A Survey of Stylistics. Not only
have the works shed light on the introduction and appreciation of stylistic theories, they
have also provided valuable guidance to the teaching of stylistics in China.
2.2 A Survey of the Study on E. E. Cummings’s Poetry
Being recognized as the avant-garde poet on the arena of modern experimental
poetry with productive works of poetry, essays, drawings and paintings, E. E. Cummings
attracted literary critics and linguists worldwide and his work has remained a heated
controversy. The center of controversy is his dramatic and eccentric use of language, the
subversion of conventional grammar and syntax and above all the ability of creating
exceptional visual effects in his poetry. There has been a considerable amount of research
on E. E. Cummings’ poetry both home and abroad mainly from the perspectives of literary
criticism and linguistic perspective.
2.2.1 Literary Criticism
In terms of literary criticism, scholars have conducted extensive research on themes,
images and biographical backdrop in E. E. Cummings’ poems. For example, Richard S.
Kennedy (1980) wrote a biography of E. E. Cummings named Dreams in the Mirror
depicting that writing and self were never very far apart for E.E. Cummings, an
indispensible biography of the poet without which many aspects of Cummings' self and
writing would remain obscure. Norman Friedman (1960) in his book The Art of His Poetry
searched for the sources of Cummings’ life and analyzed the varieties and methods in his
masterpieces. He also points out that The Poetry and Prose of E.E. Cummings provided
7 possible interpretations of Cummings’ sense of tragedy, the relation between love and
satire and enlightening analyses of certain poems.
2.2.2 Linguistic Study
Studies on the linguistic perspective of E. E. Cummings’ poetry were mainly
conducted from the domains of phonetics, morphology and syntax. For instance, Paul
Griffiths (1980) discussed the musical background of E. E. Cummings’ poetry and thought
that Cummings’ perception for phonetic values served as a valuable starting point for
constructing new patterns of context. Funkhouser Linder and Daniel C. O’ Connell (1984)
used the radio recorder and acoustic spectroscope testing the reading of Cummings’
“Buffalo Bill’s”, “Dying is fine but Death”, “in Just_” and “O sweet spontaneous” to
obtain the acoustic materials and draw a charter depicting pitches and varies forms of
pauses for the analysis of the effects of the features. Richard D. Cureton (1990) wrote the
essay “E. E. Cummings: A Study of the Poetic Use of Deviant Morphology”. Regisl Welch
(1984) in the essay The Linguistic Paintings of E. E. Cummings, Painter Poet points out
that Cummings rejected to accept the morphological patterns formed in the twentieth
century by blending in his poetry the modernist abstract painting techniques to achieve the
dynamic combination of images and semantic meanings. Docherty Brian (1990) analyzed
the deviation of the transformative rule from the perspective of transformational grammar.
Richard Cureton (1985) in Visual Form in E. E. Cummings’: No Thanks further discussed
how the visual forms make the phonetic, syntactic and narrative structures of the
conventional poems concrete and analyzed five aspects in which visual forms may surpass
the conventional poems, namely visual images, visual sounds, visual ambiguity, arbitrary
forms and concrete forms. Geoffrey N. Leech (1969) took examples of Cummings’ poems
to illustrate linguistic deviation in his book A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry.
The idiosyncratic creations in E. E. Cummings’ poetry has evoked the interests of
Chinese scholars whose studies of Cummings’ poetry are even more creative and versatile
in comparison with those in the West. Wang Zuoliang and Ding Wangdao (1980) in An
Introduction to English Stylistics and Qin Xiubai (1991) in A Survey of Stylistics sited
Cummings’ poems as examples of deviation. Qian Jiaoru (1985) in the published journal
8 discussed the language of e. e. Cummings’ Poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town” in
which the switch of parts of speech, special functions of prepositions and patterns are
approached. Chang Yaoxin (1987) in his Selected Readings in American Literature chose
two of Cummings’ poems to make an introduction on E. E. Cumming to Chinese students
majoring in English. Yu Xueyong (2007) in A Stylistic Study on English Poetry constructed
a three-dimensional model and framework which is composed of form, realization and
semantic levels after reorganizing the overlaying categories of deviations put forward by
Leech and selected several representative pieces of E. E. Cummings’ poems as examples in
some of the chapters to analyze the deviation and cohesion effects in English poetry. This
thesis draws inspiration from the above researches. The previous analyses of E. E.
Cummings’ poetry mostly focused on a small portion of poems such as l (a, in Just and O
sweet spontaneous which were mentioned time and time again by predecessors in the
annotations of selected English poem collections while slightly neglecting many other
poems with the same value for analysis. Therefore, there is still room for analysis of both
classical poems and neglected ones. During the composition and preparation of this thesis,
I have read a great number of relevant books, journals and articles, which laid a solid
foundation for the theoretical basis of this thesis and paved the way for the academic study
in the future.
9