*Professor and Head, Department of English, K S R Institute for Engineering and Technology, Tiruchengode-637215, India
**Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, Government College of Education, Komarapalayam, Tamilnadu-638183, India
This paper is a close analysis of some poems written by E.E. Cummings. His intense interest in a variety of art forms found expression in the poetry and prose created by him. He was unique because he blended the lyrical with the satirical in his poetry. His purpose was to create a unity in the modern world which transcends materialism, politics and perceived notions. Cummings is the true American tradition of the individualist broke many traditional concepts in children, love and marriage; unpoeple in society and individualists in American society. He wrote for discerning people who could appreciate his technique and see that he loved America greatly even though he criticised the American way of life. This criticism has given us vignettes of various aspects of American society. Cummings’ poems are peopled with wide spectrum of people in which the individualist is contracted and shown to be superior to mostpeople, which was his term for the large majority of Americans, who surrender their individuality at the altar of progress and unthinkingly conform to the conventions of society. Cummings divides people into two categories. They are either individualists or mostpeople, who some are referred to as unpeople. These two categories include both children and adults. Cummings, through his poems on individualism, feels that children are individualists, who as a result of adult influence become mostpeople as they grow up. Thus, Cummings’ poems portray the very soul of America – the landscape and the mindscape of the Americans in all its splendour.
Individualism, mostpeople, unpeople, vignettes of American society
