E.E. Cummings’ modernism and the classics : each imperishable stanza

393 Pages·2016·3.35 MB·English

by  Rosenblitt

CLASSICAL PRESENCES
GeneralEditors
LORNAHARDWICK JAMESI.PORTER
CLASSICAL PRESENCES
Attemptstoreceivethetexts,images,andmaterialcultureofancient
GreeceandRomeinevitablyruntheriskofappropriatingthepastin
order to authenticate the present. Exploring the ways in which the
classical past has been mapped over the centuries allows us to trace
the avowal and disavowal of values and identities, old and new.
Classical Presences brings the latest scholarship to bear on the
contexts, theory, andpractice of suchuse, andabuse, of theclassical
past.
’
E.E. Cummings
Modernism and the
Classics
Each Imperishable Stanza
J. ALISON ROSENBLITT
1
3
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FOR Em
& the whole garden will bow)
E.E. Cummings
26 September 2013

Acknowledgements
Icouldnothavewrittenthisbookwithouttheopportunitytounder-
takearchivalresearchattheHoughtonLibrary(HarvardUniversity)
and the Harry Ransom Center (University of Texas at Austin), and
I would like to thank the amazingly kind and helpful staff at both
libraries for their assistance and for the fabulous research environ-
mentsfosteredby bothinstitutions.Iamvery gratefulfortheassist-
anceprovidedbytheawardofaJoanNordellFellowship(Houghton
Library) and a Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship in the
Humanities, supported by the Frederic D. Weinstein Memorial
Fellowship.
IamalsoimmenselygratefulforthefinancialsupportoftheJowett
Copyright Trust (Balliol College), which funded the purchase of
images and the payment of copyright fees for the book. W.W.
Norton and the Cummings Trust have been incredibly supportive
and generous in their copyright arrangements, and I would like to
thank them, and in particular, Jill Bialosky, Elizabeth Clementson,
MaryKateSkehan,andRobertShatzkinforsortingoutcopyrightfor
thisbookandformyotherpublicationsonCummings.Ialsothank,
again, the staff at the Houghton Library and the Harry Ransom
Center for their very efficient and straightforward processes for
imageacquisitionandcopyrightclearance.
Chapter6 is a reprint with permission of ‘“a twilight smelling of
Vergil”:E.E.Cummings,Classics,andtheGreatWar.’Greece&Rome
61(2014):242–60,©CambridgeUniversityPress.Thechapterisonly
veryslightlymodifiedfromtheoriginalarticle,mostlyforcontinuity
with previous chapters. I thank the readers and editors at Greece &
Rome for the helpful suggestions which they made at the time of
originalpublication.
IamgratefultoElizabethPenderandEdRichardsonfortheoppor-
tunitytogiveanearlydraftofaportionofChapter8asapaperattheir
conference, ‘Classics and Classicists in the First World War’, 8–10
April2014,UniversityofLeeds.Iwasmuchspurredonbythefeedback
andcommentsofotherconferenceparticipants,andIthankespecially
Miranda Hickman for prompting me to think more about the rela-
tionshipbetweenCummingsandEliot.Ialsoappreciatehavinghadthe
viii Acknowledgements
opportunity to present aspects of my work on Cummings at ‘The
Poetics of War: Remembering Conflict from Ancient Greece to the
GreatWar’,17–19June2015,UCLandatJoannaPaul’scolloquium,
‘Antiquity and Photography’, 10 September 2015, Open University
(London).
Michael Webster made me feel welcome from the outset in the
community of Cummings scholars. He has been the very model of
scholarlygenerosity.Ithankhimforsharingsomeofhisownworkin
advance of publication, for reading portions of my work, and for
continually sharing his time and expertise. He has offered many
helpful tips and saved me from several errors. I also thank him for
putting me in touch with James Dempsey for information on the
poem,‘AGIRL’SRING’,andIthankJamesDempseyforpermission
to cite his own archival research at Yale which sheds light on the
compositionofthatpoem.
I owe a different kind of debt, in common with everyone who
worksonCummingstoday,totheworkofthelateGeorgeJ.Firmage
andthelateRichardS.Kennedy.Ioweascholarlydebt,especiallyfor
their work on Etcetera, but also a personal debt, in that Kennedy’s
Selected Poems was given to me when I was a teenager and I do not
knowifIeverwouldhavewanderedintothisprojectotherwise.
Among classicists, I thank in particular Tim Rood, who read the
entire book in draft. I am also very grateful to Fiona Macintosh for
hersupportandforthewelcomeshehasextendedtomefromwithin
the world of classical reception. For fielding queries, chatting to me
aboutmywork,andofferingsupportofvariouskinds,IthankGeorgina
Capel,AdrianKelly,BenCartlidge,RosalindThomas,DeborahBlake,
Georgy Kantor, Daniel Matore, Julia Griffin, Robin Lane Fox,
MathuraUmachandran,andLindaS.Siegel.IalsothankAlMoreno
foranincrediblykindandgenerousoffice-sharearrangementduring
the year when I was finishing this book, and Salmaan Mirza for the
equally kind and generous loan of a freeroom during some archival
workatHarvard.
I have strayed from my training in ancient Roman history. Not-
withstanding the change of field, my doctoral supervisor, Miriam
Griffin,shapesthisbooksimplybecauseshehasshapedmyintellec-
tuallife,andoneofthegreatestdebtsIoweistoher.Myverygreatest
debt is to my husband, Jonathan Thorpe, for everything. I gratefully
thank, also, my parents, Daphne and Donald Rosenblitt for their
support, and especially my mother for proofreading the entire
Acknowledgements ix
manuscript.IthankEmilyRosenblitt,ChrisFryar, andFleur deWit
fortheirsupportandenthusiasm,andIdedicatethisbooktoEmwith
loveandgratitude.
Finally, I thank everyone at OUP who has made it possible to see
thebookthroughtoprintexistence:HilaryO’Shea,LornaHardwick,
James I. Porter, Vicki Sunter, Georgina Leighton, Emma Slaughter,
Heather Watson, and, most of all, OUP’s commissioning editor for
Classics, Charlotte Loveridge, who never stints on her availability in
spite of the vast Classics list which she oversees. I also thank OUP’s
anonymous peer readers, who have helped me to make this book so
muchbetterthanthefirstsubmitteddraft.
Cummings copyright as follows: ‘a politician is an arse upon’.
Copyright 1944, © 1972, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E.
Cummings Trust. ‘a like a’. Copyright 1950, © 1978, 1991 by the
TrusteesfortheE.E.CummingsTrust.Copyright©1979byGeorge
James Firmage. ‘A GIRL’S RING’. Copyright © 1973, 1983, 1991 by
theTrusteesfortheE.E.CummingsTrust.Copyright©1973,1983by
George James Firmage. ‘of evident invisibles’. Copyright 1923, 1951,
© 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust. Copyright
© 1976 by George James Firmage. ‘in Just-’. Copyright 1923, 1951,
©1991bytheTrusteesfortheE.E.CummingsTrust.Copyright©1976
by George James Firmage. ‘Tumbling-hair / picker of buttercups /
violets’. Copyright 1925, 1953, © 1991 by the Trustees for the
E.E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1976 by George James Firmage.
‘annie died the other day’. Copyright © 1961, 1989, 1991 by the
Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust. ‘HELEN’. Copyright © 1973,
1983,1991bytheTrusteesfortheE.E.CummingsTrust.Copyright©
1973, 1983 by George James Firmage. ‘earth like a tipsy’. Copyright
1923, 1951, © 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust.
Copyright © 1976 by George James Firmage. ‘first she like a piece
of ill-oiled’. Copyright © 1973, 1983, 1991 by the Trustees for the
E.E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1973, 1983 by George James
Firmage. ‘through the tasteless minute efficient room’. Copyright
©1973, 1983, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust.
Copyright © 1973, 1983 by George James Firmage. ‘O sweet spon-
taneous’. Copyright 1923, 1951, © 1991 by the Trustees for the
E.E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1976 by George James Firmage.
‘(theewillipraisebetweenthoseriverswhose’.Copyright1923,1951
© 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust. Copyright
©1976byGeorgeJamesFirmage.‘Doll’sboy’sasleep’.Copyright1923,