what is the poem next to of course god america i about

Full Answer

What does next to of course God America I mean?

E. E. Cummings published "next to of course god america i" in 1926 as part of his poetry collection Is 5, which contained a number of anti-war poems. In keeping with this, the poem satirizes the intense patriotism that many people adopted during World War I.

What is the rhyme scheme of next to of course God America?

Analysis of next to of course god america i next to of course god america i is a 14 line sonnet with a rhyme scheme ababcdcdefgfeg and an inconsistent iambic meter (metre in British English) which helps vary the rhythmic stresses of the lines. Basically this is a hybrid English and Russian sonnet with a cumming's twist - a single line at the end.

What is the poem ‘God-fearing America’ about?

The poem is a parody of a ‘speech’ to extreme patriots — the ranting monologue of ‘God-fearing’ America.

What does Cummings mock about the United States in this poem?

Throughout, cummings mocks or makes light of many of the slogans and features associated with the United States of America, such as when he follows the phrase ‘land of the pilgrims’ with the offhand words ‘and so forth’. We get further casual, colloquial everyday phrases – such as ‘what of it’ – peppered throughout the poem as we read further.

How does Cummings remove himself from the poem?

He removes himself from the poem by using a speaker within a speaker, but the content of the poem directly corresponds with Cummings’ life experiences. As a volunteer during World War I, Cummings acquired a bitterness for war which he did not scruple to express. He was outspoken and willing to go against the grain to stand up for ...

What does the speaker say in the line "Jingo by Gee by Gosh by Gum"?

by jingo by gee by gosh by gum. With these lines, the speaker reveals that people of every language, and yes even deaf people have “acclaim [ed” the “glorious” name of patriotism through the “gory details of war”. The use of the words “jingo”, “gee”, “gosh” and “gum” suggest that the speaker believes the gory wars in the name ...

What degree did Allisa have?

Allisa graduated with a degree in Secondary Education and English and taught World Literature and Composition at the high school level. She has always enjoyed writing, reading, and analysing literature.

What does the poet play with?

The poet also plays with syntax, grammar and device to create a single work that is both anarchic and witty.

Which line in the poem is the oxymoron heroic happy dead?

Lines 8 and 9 build into the alliterative line 10 which contains the oxymoron heroic happy dead - happily dead? Not only are they happy according to the speaker, they are also like lions who can't wait to be slaughtered (with inappropriate laughter). Odd, isn't it supposed to be like lambs to the slaughter? Either way, the use of the only simile in the poem is powerful enough.

What does the enjambment mean in the first line?

And what about the first line, it ends with an i - does the reader stop before going on to the second line which begins with love? Not really. The enjambment (when a line has no punctuation at the end and sense continues on) means the reader should not take a pause but flow on as best they can into the next line.

What line does Cummings split beaut/iful in?

A slight change in rhythm as line 9 brings beauty out of the blue, repeated at the end of the line as Cummings splits beaut/iful in two. This not only allows the line to end with a rising beaut- but ties up the full rhyme later on with mute (in line 13).

Why do we need gulps of water in a speech?

Such a speech requires gulps of water, to aid digestion, to swallow all those cliches.

What is the quotation mark in the poem "Someone is about to speak"?

Quotation marks begin this poem. Someone is about to speak, is speaking. This could be a speech about God, America, the ego. All three are right next to each other and all three are written in lower case, which is the poet's prerogative but looks kind of odd.

Why does the speaker cut short the anthemic lines?

The speaker cuts short the anthemic lines perhaps because he is so used to giving similar speeches he cannot be bothered to finish them. He's trying to get through the speech in one go, get it over as quickly as he can.

Who is the most experimental modernist poet?

The American poet e. e. cummings (as he styled himself) was one of the most linguistically experimental mainstream modernist poets writing in the United States in the twentieth century, and his poem ‘next to of course god america i’ is a fine example of his innovative style.

What is the opening line of the Star Spangled Banner?

The poem goes on to summon a number of earlier patriotic poems about the United States, such as Francis Scott Key’s ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ (better known as the US national anthem), specifically the opening line ‘Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light’ , and the patriotic hymn ‘ America (My Country, ’Tis of Thee) ’.

Who made the point about great religious works of art risking the charge of blasphemy?

Sir Christopher Ricks, the literary critic, made a similar point about great religious works of art risking the charge of blasphemy. The same, we might say, is true of all interesting patriotic poems. You can read ‘next to of course god america i’ by Cummings here before proceeding to our analysis.

Next to of course god america i

ee cummings, a pacifist, was imprisoned during World War One for his supposed disloyalty to America. He was also accused, falsely, of being a spy. After the war he moved to… Read More

About

ee cummings, a pacifist, was imprisoned during World War One for his supposed disloyalty to America. He was also accused, falsely, of being a spy. After the war he moved to Paris where he wrote satirical poems. His novel The Enormous Room (1922) was the first of his many literary attacks on authoritarianism and rabid nationalism.

What does the line "they did not stop to think they died instead" mean?

Though it is not a direct reference, the line "they did not stop to think they died instead" evokes "The Charge of the Light Brigade " (1854), a well-known poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92). Tennyson's poem heroically depicts a failed cavalry charge by British troops against Russian forces in the Crimean War (1853–56; fought between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish over Russian interests in the Crimean Peninsula). The poem includes the famous lines "Theirs not to make reply, / Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die." This is exactly the sort of sentiment about heroic sacrifice that Cummings's poem is mocking.

What does the speaker ask the poet if the voice of liberty will be mute?

The speaker asks if the voice of liberty will be mute. Rhetorically, "the voice of liberty" means the poet's own position and is declaring his right to speak. Grammatically, because there is no punctuation separating it, the phrase can be read as connected to the dead soldiers, who can no longer speak at all.

Why does the speaker use no capitalization in the poem?

This gives the speaker's words a jumbled, stream-of-consciousness (uninterrupted flow of thought) quality; because the final line deviates in its presentation , the reader can reasonably assume this is a trait not of the poem but of the speaker. This unpunctuated rush may be read as the speaker being inarticulate in his delivery, possibly running together words and ideas out of nervousness, inattention, or personal indifference to the ideas he is repeating. Whatever the reader makes of the speaker's emotional state, the lack of demarcating punctuation presents a muddled parade of possible messages and creates an ambiguity as to where ideas begin and end. For example, it is easy to read the poem as saying, "in every language, even deafanddumb, thy sons acclaim thy glorious name." However, without the context of punctuation, it is also possible to read the text to mean, "why should we worry in every language even deafanddumb?" Alternatively the split could come between "why should we worry in every language" and "even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim thy glorious name."

How does the speaker's delivery undermine his message?

The speaker's delivery undermines his message. His patriotism is hollow and perfunctory. He does not finish any of his patriotic quotations and adds meaningless filler phrases such as "and so forth." The lack of formal grammar within the spoken text implies words jumbled together without structured thought behind them . The words are placed in such a way that grammatical ambiguities allow for more than one meaning. For example, "deafanddumb" is placed next to the line about the soldiers proclaiming America's name, and the line about their deaths is followed with "then shall the voice of liberty be mute?" Because these ideas are not separated by punctuation, the way they run together suggests the brutal silencing of the soldiers. Likewise, "like lions to the roaring slaughter" can be read as either fighting valiantly or dying pointlessly, depending on who is slaughtering whom. The "roaring" could refer to the soldiers, lionlike in their courage, or it could suggest the mechanized grinding and bomb blasts of the modern battlefield. Finally, he follows with the question of whether the voice of Liberty would be mute with silence.

What does the final line of silence in the poem mean?

The final line of silence balanced against the 13 lines of speech serve to illustrate the degree to which the speaker has gone on. The final line, outside of the speech, also serves to illustrate how much the speech is a performance and a work of artifice. The poet could easily have created a sonnet in which all 14 lines were delivered from the speaker's perspective without any break or without quotation marks to indicate that it was a speech. However, the character's delivery is at least as much the point of the poem as anything he actually says. For this effect, the overwhelming preponderance of his speech relative to his silence hammers home this effect perfectly. The exertion of the performance even leaves him so parched that he needs to drink.

What does the word "deaf" mean in Cummings' poem?

The speaker also runs together the words deaf and dumb, compressing them into a single concept, which he sets beside "every language." These original compound words, a common feature in Cummings's poetry, create new concepts or attempt fresh expressions of common realities. Standing alone, the word expresses not hearing or speaking. The poet might even refer to people who cannot or refuse to hear and speak—those who go along and conform. But the word could be a biblical reference to people who live in a sort of ignorance, as in the book of Romans, in which those who have not heard or confessed salvation through Christ will be damned. The compound word stands out against the rest of the poem, draws attention to itself, and reinforces the totality of the concept.

Was Cummings a pacifist?

During and after World War I, Cummings was a pacifist, and throughout his life he remained a critic of any cultural institution that tried to do an individual's thinking for them. He disliked compulsory patriotism, and the biting satire of it in this poem stands as a testament to that disdain.

What are the opening allusions in the Star Spangled Banner?

The opening allusions in lines 1 through 3, from "The Star-Spangled Banner” (1814) and “America/My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (1831), are also used in Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963. The whole cloth of cummings’ text, written nearly a century after the patriotic hymns, weaves deliberate deceit, however; it is far from a dreamer’s vision. The orator speaks of the passage of centuries in line 5, adding “we should worry,” but his warning is lost in the flood of his political rhetoric. We should indeed worry if politicians like cummings' speaker retain their powers of persuasion.

What line does Cummings use in his speech?

Cummings' speaker uses an amusing contradiction that alludes to senseless babbling in line 6, as he speaks of “every language even deafanddumb.” He then proceeds in line 8 to hyperbolically allude to common folk/salt-of-the-earth clichés, sprinkled in his text like field fertilizer; “by jingo by gee by gosh by gum” is his attempt to find the right metaphor for his plain, simple audience, the more easily to appeal to them as a man of the people. His previous allusion contradicts him, however: The speaker, deaf to his audience, speaks to the dumb who cannot reply.

Why talk of beauty in Keats?

In line 9, the speaker asks rhetorically, “Why talk of beauty?” an allusion to Keats’ “beauty is truth, truth beauty,” as he drums up false sentiment for war, alluding hypocritically to the honor of casualties: “what could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead” who, in a mixed metaphor, rush like “lions to the slaughter” rather than lambs. The allusion to the alleged biblical verse of lion lying with lamb -- a phrase that occurs nowhere in Scripture -- has happened already to these warriors; they are lambs to a slaughter the speaker urges upon them.

Should Liberty Be Mute?

Cummings’ final allusion in line 13, “should the voice of liberty be mute?” is also a rhetorical question, alluding to the “Voice of Liberty” broadcasts of FDR’s fireside chats before World War II; in truth, the voice of the speaker who feigns a love of liberty probably should be mute. His speech, overstuffed with meaningless verbiage, prompts no thirst for liberty, freedom or the fight for it -- only for a rapidly consumed glass of water.

'Next to of Course God America I' Analysis

See more on owlcation.com

Overview of The Poem

Line by Line Analysis of 'Next to of Course God America I'

Sources