Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

Introduction

The research question I will be investigating is “How effectively does e.e. cummings represent

spontaneous delight and its capacity to reveal the youthful vivacity of the human spirit in his

poetry?”. One of e.e. cummings’ most notable and inspiring quotes is “Once we believe in

ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals

the human spirit”. This quote captures the passion and deep appreciation for life and the human

spirit evident in cummings’ works. Essentially, cummings is an adult attempting to capture the

transient feeling of being young – the raging passion for life, infectious optimism and an

undefinable mystique that makes youth so unique. He explores the irony of youth and the

paradox of human life, the importance of being young at heart, the revitalizing power of new

beginnings and the new generation; through symbols like spring and childhood and the primacy

of youthful passion over reason. These elements culminate in a mood of spontaneous delight

that underpins all of e.e. cummings’ poetry and captures the youthful vivacity of the human

spirit.

As an ambulance officer in 1917 during the First World War, cummings was witness to the

unspeakable brutality of the ‘Great War’ and the widespread loss of spirituality and belief in

human decency, that would soon follow (Poetry Foundation 2017, p2). The world that emerged

in the aftermath of World War 1 was cruel and unfamiliar – the Western world hardened by

the knowledge of the inhumanity of people. Cummings was a member of the generation that

“returned from World War I ready to demolish Victorian illusions and experiment with all

kinds of liberation, sexual and social as well as literary.” (Kirsch 2005, p.2) The birth of

Modernism was then inextricably bound to the shock and pessimism that emerged from the

war; a reminder that the world, as broken as it seemed, was still beautiful. As one of the most

influential poets of the modernist era (Kirsch 2005, p.1), cummings deals with this paradox by

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