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EDWARD ESTLIN CUMMINGS (1894-1962) - Poetry, Prose and Politics Or La Salle Enorme Revisited

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EDWARD ESTLIN CUMMINGS (1894-1962) - Poetry, Prose and Politics Or La Salle Enorme Revisited EDWARD ESTLIN CUMMINGS (1894-1962) - Poetry, Prose and Politics or La Salle Enorme Revisited. Cummings has been regarded as one of the leading lyricists America has produced. His writing is well known for its typographical eccentricity. Neither of these aspects is my primary concern but when they intrude upon quotations (as they inevitably will) I ask that they at least be tolerated, if not appreciated. Cumming's novel The Enormous Room is about politics - not party politics nor petty local government-type politics, but petty world politics. The novel is only a 'novel' because it doesn't give the actual names of in- dividuals involved, otherwise it is a piece of documentary prose. In April 1917 Cummings and his friend Slater Brown joined the Norton-Har/es Amb- ulance Corps (an American volunteer unit serving in France). On September 21st, as a result of some letters of Brown being intercepted by a French censor, both Cummings and Brown were arrested and moved to La Ferte Mace detention/concentration camp. Cummings was not released until December 19th and then only as a result of desperate letters written by his father to the President of the United States. The Enormous Room is con- cerned with the seventy-odd men who lived in the eighty foot by forty foot room at the prison, and the manner in which they reacted to the confinement and torture. One of the most amazing aspects the two Americans noticed was their excitement at being among such a variety of characters. After his arrival and reintroduction to Brown (who had been moved independently and arrived before Cummings) Cummings asks whether or not they are in an asylum. While apparently ignoring the question, Brown replies: - 'Hello, Cum- mings," he said smiling. "There's a man here who is a friend of Vander - bilt and knew Cezanne . There are people here who speak English, Russian, Arabian. There are the finest people here.'' (The Enormous Room, p.60). Cummings' reaction after a settling-in period is almost the same. He wrote to his mother on October 1st: - "You can't imagine . how interesting a time I'm having. Not for anything in the world would I change it! . you will believe me when / reiterate that / am having the time of my life (Cummings' underlining) . PPS Arrested a week ago today." Such exuberance was eventually replaced by that overindulgence of cur- iosity in the trivial which bored people adopt. This meant that he took a great interest in the personalities of the other prisoners, and also in those who formed the guard on the prison. From his writing it seems that his attitude to the guards and the French government that they represented was not one of hatred but more of contempt. There were a number of female prisoners at Mace, most of whom were prostitutes; these prostitutes in- variably triumphed over the petty officials and guards at the prison. In one instance, which I will quote- somewhat fully, one of 'les putains' is working in the courtyard three stories below the enormous room, and the male prisoners lower a jam-tin bucket on a rope of belts, scarves, ties etc. so that they can get some fresh water. These antics are detected by one of the guards. ''The sight which greeted his eyes caused him to excrete a single mouthful of vivid profanity, made him grip his gun like a hero, set every nerve in his noble and faithful body tingling. App,arently, however, he had completely forgotten his gun, which lay faithfully and expectingly in his two noble hands . The planton did something with his gun very aim- lessly and rapidly. "FIRE!" shrieked the sergeant, scarlet with rage and 52 mortification. The planton, cool as steel, raised his gun. 'NOM DE 0/EU TIREZ'' The bucket, in big merry sounding jumps, was approaching the window below us. The planton took airn; falling fearlessly on one knee, and closing both his eyes. / confess that my blood stood on tip-toe; but what was death to the loss of that jam-bucket, let alone everyone's apparel which everyone had so generously loaned. We kept on hauling silently. Out of the corner of my eye / beheld planton - now on both knees, musket held to his shoulder by his left arm and pointing unflinchingly at us one and all - hunting with his right arm and hand in his belt for cartridges!" Cummings' contempt is not for the man, but for the social organization of government that he typifies. At this relatively early age Cummings was beginning to show his faith in individualism. Cummings' attitude to organized government control did not alter for the whole of his life. He took what appears to have been an academic interest in the success of the socialist revolution in Russia, and seems also to have been quite impressed. Neither of these factors is particularly unusual for intellectuals in the United States in the twenties. His attitude to the French government and its suppression of the communists is bitter. As usual, he sees the 'little man' as being the victim of the immaculately dressed, militarily organized policy force. In IS 5, 2 ix, he writes "There are 50 (fifty) flics for every 1 (One). communist and all the flics are very organically arranged. the Prefect of Police . - my he's brave the communists pick up themselves friends & their hats legs & arms. and so on. He also attacks the political structure of the United ,States. Here one cannot find the same bitterness that can be noted in the anti- French poems. Two poems / would specifically refer to, the first of which can be given in its entirety, and comes from 1 x 1 (One Times One), poem x: a politician is an arse upon which everyone has st except a man. The second example must also be given entirely; the humour is lost without doing so. This is also from IS 5 2 iii. "next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country 'tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worr',' in every language even deaf and dumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beaut- iful than those heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute'?" He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water. The message against nationalism is universal, but the jingoism could on!) be american. Cummings equated organized politics/government with war, primarily because of his own experiences. His most specifically anti- war poem is 'i sing of Olaf glad and big', which is from W (ViVa), xxx. Once again the conflict is between the 'little man' and the organized military-police force. The conscientious objection of Olaf is contrasted with 'a yearning nations blueeyed pride'. The hypocrisy of these same 53 officers who their passive prey did kick and curse' is another example of the multi-valued situation in the martial/bourgeois society as Cummings sees it. Cummings was one of the most individualistic poets America has produced this century and this individualism is reflected in his political thinking. Hisstatementson McCarthy/sm, especially in the light of his pro-communisti anti-American writing, show that under the pressure of the times he was still not altering his attitudes toward government enforced nationalism. He wrote to his sister on March 27th, 1953: - "concerning all any soi- disant wi tchhun ts, what-may-be-called-my-position couldn't be any clearer. (1) With every serious anarchist who ever lived, I assume that 'all govern- ments are based on force'. (2) As a possibly not quite nonintelligent human being, I'm aware that socalled McCarthyism did not drop unmotivated from the sky - that (on the contrary) it came as a direct result of exactly what if decries: namely procommunist -&- how- activities throughout the U.S.A. (3) In 1931 I went to Russia, & what I found may be refound by anybody capable of reading a book cal/ed Eimi." This is not to say that Cummings had any pro-communist sympathies in 1953 - it is doubtful that he was anything but an n'tremist individualist by then. He Wrote in i: six nonlectures in 1952 that ''The hellless hell of compulsory heaven-on-earth emphatically isn't my pail of blueberries'', and he left little doubt that he was talking about the Communist societies: "for me, that supposedly brand new soidisant world is an all too familiar unworld - the essentially escapist world of a'so called future life, immemorially postulated by con- ventional religions - & whether this wholly & enchantingly real (to a true believer) unworld is an unworld of 'angels' & 'saints' or of 'science' & 'socialism', whether it happens to be located in some imaginary 'heaven' or on some equally (to say the least) imaginary 'earth', makes not one particle of difference, / feel, so far as its fundamental invalidity is con- cerned." (Letter to Dr R. Hoffmann, November 23, 1953) To summarise Cummings' feelings on/towards the end of his life is not possible, primarily because there is reason to believe that he had none. Cummings the individualist finally won over Cummings the protestor. By 1962 Cummings believed in the privacy of life for the individual. I quote one sentence from a letter to the mayor of New York, March 6th, 1962, written a few months before his death.
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