The Expanded Academic

Cummings, e.e. “Cummings’s l[a. (analysis of an e.e. cummings poem).” The Explicator 54.n3 (Spring 1996): 171(3). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. NAUGATUCK VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE. 25 May. 2007
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Abstract:
The visual image of e.e. cummings’s ‘l[a’ complements the structure and theme of the poem. The separation of l from the rest of the letters that make up the word loneliness as well as the solitary image conveyed by a single, falling leaf connote his message of sadness. Cumming’s decision not to divide the letters of one in support of the separated l, which could also be interpreted as identical to the numeral 1, drives home his theme.




Full Text:COPYRIGHT 1996 Heldref Publications
l(a

le af fa

ll s) one l

iness(*)

– e. e. cummings

Initially puzzling, the separated syllables and letters of this much-anthologized poem resolve for the reader into the statement “(a leaf falls)” within the word “loneliness.” As written, the statement exists within the concept. The statement is an image of a single falling leaf departing a company of fellow leaves (unless it is the last to go). Stanza gaps suggest the rhythm of its fall. The alternation of consonants with vowels in the second stanza suggests drifting to and fro on the air.(1) (Because consonants linguistically weigh more than vowels, the heavier, consonantal side indicates the direction of drift.)

The image of the falling leaf gives narrative definition to the concept loneliness, which is, as a conceptualization of emotion, every bit as compelling and evocative as the image of the leaf. The juxtaposition of image and concept powerfully focuses the poem from imaginatively different directions: the image implying the end of a botanical life story; the concept being an emotional absolute. There is more here, however, than this imaginative juxtaposition or convergence. The poem exists initially in a deconstructed state, with syllables and letters resisting absorption into the word “loneliness” and the statement that it includes. In their pre-synthesized tumble, the letters and syllables imply meanings that vary and enrich interpretation in ways that seem to mitigate, but ultimately emphasize, sadness.

Richard Kennedy points out that the first letter in the first line is identical to the Roman numeral one, so that the poem can be read as “one (a leaf falls) oneliness.(2) The initial “one” here seems a near homonym for “when.”(3) Without reading this “1” as a numeral, the letters of the first line – which are not separated by a space or, as at the end of the parenthesis, a line break – spell the French definite article, which vocally combines with the noun to make “la leaf,” a light-hearted, silly expression. Of course, this reading is confounded by the intrusive opening parenthesis, which is not, however, pronounced, so that the ghost of la may sonically survive punctuation, though only barely, because in this poem, sight dominates sound. The effect of any of these readings is to endorse the initial line break in separating the initial “1” before the parentheses from “one / 1 / iness” afterward and consequently to liberate the other elements of the word.

Given any of these readings of the first line, what immediately follows the closing parenthesis in the fourth stanza is not necessarily the continuous syllabic (syllable-and-a-half) “one / 1” but “one” and “1” – the latter, again, indistinguishable from the Roman numeral I.(4) As a number, it reads as a merely factual clarification of its immediate predecessor, as in “one, i.e. 1, leaf falls.”

To the degree that any or all of these letters and syllables are separable from “loneliness,” the final line/stanza may be read as one or two possible neologisms: “iness” may be read as “i-ness,” which emphasizes the neutrality of the preceding singling “1,” “one,” and “1.”(5) The suggestion might then be that a person with an i-dentity inevitably experiences loneliness, or that loneliness intensifies identity. As “i-ness,” “iness” is the visually predominant possibility, because it is orthographically correct. It is not, however, aurally plausible because the initial “i” would not normally be pronounced as a long vowel. The aurally plausible pronunciation would be “in-ess” or “in-ness.” The implication of this reading, which the single “n” orthographically obscures, is that “in-ness,” introversion, or inward-directed thought is, if not inevitable, at least an option for those who find themselves alone. Furthermore, “iness” is homonymous with, and therefore evocative of, the Gaelic innis, for island, and at this admittedly evocative distance from the denotative immediacy of the poem, may contradict John Donne’s famous statement that “No man is an island.” The lonely are islands. The connotations of the Gaelic word seem positive, however, because it also means “choice pasture” or “choice place” and therefore suggests that meditative interiority is a good place to graze.

From behind the edges of loneliness, which is the primary subject of this poem, peek happier experiences of solitude. These are vastly outweighed, however, by the words that the letters ultimately make up and by the gravitational teleology of the letters in the pictograph. In the picture made by the letters, the fall of the leaf concludes horizontally in the poem’s longest connected string of letters, suggesting the leaf at rest. What has fallen, then, is “iness” with its positive connotations of identity (“i-ness”) and interiority (“in-ness”). If the denotative subject of this poem is loneliness, an important implication of its image of the falling leaf, and the primary intimation of its pictograph, is mortality.

– THOMAS DILWORTH, University of Windsor, Canada

NOTES

1. Norman Friedman, E. E. Cummings, the art of his poetry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1960) 172.

2. Richard S. Kennedy, E. E. Cummings revisited (New York: Twayne, 1994) 131.

3. This is the insight of Filip Premrl, a first year English student.

4. Premrl.

5. Premrl.

WORK CITED

Cummings, E. E. “l(a” Complete Poems: 1904-1962. Ed. George J. Firmage. New York: Norton, 1991.

* “l(a” is reprinted from Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E.E. Cummings. Edited by George J. Firmage, by permission of Liveright Publishing Corp. Copyright [C] 1958, 1986, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust.

Thomson Gale Document Number:A18626712

I have to do an article summary on the above…3 pages plus cited works