E.e. Cummings's Illimitable Being-to Be Nobody-but-yourself In His Poems And Life

E.E. Cummings (1894-1962) is one of the pioneers of modern American poetry as well as a well-known painter in the 20th century. He is maverick, innovative and dares to challenge the traditional forms and norms, leaving revolutionary impacts on modern and contemporary American poetry through his numerous bizarre, fresh and new poems. The poet defends the ultimate value of freedom, individuality, authenticity by all means in his creative writing and unconventional life and incessantly insists on an illimitable being—to be nobody-but-yourself, namely, a free, authentic, and unique self, which is especially embodied in his emotional self, formal self, political self, and spiritual self as is cauterized by the author of this paper.Based on the theoretical background of poet's representative anthology Complete Poems (1904-1962), combined with the period background in which the poet lived, this thesis analyzes unique characteristics of the poet and generalizes his four strong individualities in emotion, form, politics, and spirit meanwhile it also has a discussion on the poet's life experience of self pursuit and self realization, all of which contributes to the profound and complete understanding of his personalities and social significance of his works. In the theme of poetry, E.E.Cummings interprets love as the core and power of everything in the world and reveals the contradiction and the distance between most people's inner self and social self through the profound discussion on the relationship between individuals and society, giving an attack on'distortion of human nature under the modern ideology and material civilization as well as the loss of individuality under social pressures. In the form of poetry, the poet applied aesthetic principles of painting and music to his poems and realized the perfect combination of poetry, painting and music, creating an unprecedented and new artistic style.This thesis is composed of seven chapters. The first chapter is an introduction, giving a description on the content of the research-E.E.Cummings'illimitable being, the methodology of the research and some literature review at home and abroad and so on. Chapter Two to Chapter Six as the body part of the thesis, from Chapter Two to Chapter Five, discussion is focused on four aspects of the poet'life with reference to his poems and his pursuit of freedom and individuality, including emotional self, formal self, political self and spiritual self. It is found that his core value remaining constant:an incessant pursuit of individual freedom. Chapter Six tries to discuss the issue of freedom and authenticity of life in a broader sense, contrasting the poet's success in advocating and maintaining individuality and authenticity of life with widespread failure of most people in modern societies. The last chapter is the conclusion; it is believed that as far as the poet is concerned," poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality....Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else." Situated in this complicated world full of good and evil, rights and wrongs, the author agrees with the poet that the free, authentic and distinctive individuality is an illimitable being transcending the death and time, the fame and fate, and above all the limits set by modernity and rationality.