I struggled with what is meant by calling the poem. I tried to think 'what does sentimental mean?' I did not get anywhere. I think it may mean that I can picture the poem as a Pixar cartoon. Like Maclin, I am charmed by it.
Nicely done. Your expository notes left me asking why the war on "sentiment"? Only way to be heard in a zealously modernist era? Or something else? At any rate, thanks and keep up the good work!
From this distance, the sentiments of the Victorians and of their (early 20th century high) modernist critics seem equally from another world. If anything, for all my fondness for modernism, especially in painting, I think much that seemed strikingly new now looks hopelessly dependent on the traditions it claimed to reject. And, in medium after medium, it couldn't sustain itself. Anyway, back to work . . .
I never read anything of his besides a few anthology pieces. He must have really irritated those super -analytic critics. (I.A. Richards and others I think? It's been a long time since I thought about them.)
Cummings is one of those poets I primarily know only through Intro to Lit anthologies. I enjoy his word- and shape-play, but have never felt especially enamored of any of his work. I didn't know he had written several poems about the moon, and I shall have to look at them now; I love the moon and have adopted it as a sort of muse. The last two nights the full/nearly full moon has brought so much glory into our neighborhood! In this poem, the one word that catches me with some distress is "creep" -- I always think of someone who is "creeping" somewhere as being, well, creepy -- not on forthright business but a little shady, like the weird professor at my alma mater who used to creep through the halls watching the female grad students . . . I was loving the poem right until that word appeared, but then I do love the last two lines:"And out of the east toward / her a fragile light bent gatheringly." What a lovely description of what I've seen numerous times on my early morning drive to work.
Reading this puts my literalism smack in the road of my understanding. Is the moon a playful child, or a seducing child (ick)? Is that the sun in the east waking up to find her child is out playing in the dark again? Or the moon's more appropriate lover arriving to gather it back? I guess I don't see sentimentality. I see light-sex 😊
I struggled with what is meant by calling the poem. I tried to think 'what does sentimental mean?' I did not get anywhere. I think it may mean that I can picture the poem as a Pixar cartoon. Like Maclin, I am charmed by it.
Love this. I don’t mind his lack of punctuation. He’s in a hurry. It makes the moon’s moment more intimate.
“she did not fall / she went creeping along the air / over houses / roofs.” This is really--Haiku!
Nicely done. Your expository notes left me asking why the war on "sentiment"? Only way to be heard in a zealously modernist era? Or something else? At any rate, thanks and keep up the good work!
I think you're right. The turn to modernism was at least partially driven by a disdain for Victorian sentimentality.
From this distance, the sentiments of the Victorians and of their (early 20th century high) modernist critics seem equally from another world. If anything, for all my fondness for modernism, especially in painting, I think much that seemed strikingly new now looks hopelessly dependent on the traditions it claimed to reject. And, in medium after medium, it couldn't sustain itself. Anyway, back to work . . .
Okay, I admit it: I'm charmed.
I never read anything of his besides a few anthology pieces. He must have really irritated those super -analytic critics. (I.A. Richards and others I think? It's been a long time since I thought about them.)
Cummings is one of those poets I primarily know only through Intro to Lit anthologies. I enjoy his word- and shape-play, but have never felt especially enamored of any of his work. I didn't know he had written several poems about the moon, and I shall have to look at them now; I love the moon and have adopted it as a sort of muse. The last two nights the full/nearly full moon has brought so much glory into our neighborhood! In this poem, the one word that catches me with some distress is "creep" -- I always think of someone who is "creeping" somewhere as being, well, creepy -- not on forthright business but a little shady, like the weird professor at my alma mater who used to creep through the halls watching the female grad students . . . I was loving the poem right until that word appeared, but then I do love the last two lines:"And out of the east toward / her a fragile light bent gatheringly." What a lovely description of what I've seen numerous times on my early morning drive to work.
I think creeping is also something children do. Creeping through the house, hoping mom and dad don't catch them awake.
The Alex Guinness recording is worth a listen.
I shall check it out; thanks.
Reading this puts my literalism smack in the road of my understanding. Is the moon a playful child, or a seducing child (ick)? Is that the sun in the east waking up to find her child is out playing in the dark again? Or the moon's more appropriate lover arriving to gather it back? I guess I don't see sentimentality. I see light-sex 😊
I kind of had that reaction, too. I thought at first it was a woman. Still not sure.