E. E. Cummings is a poet known for his strategic and unique use of punctuation, spacing, rhythm, and poem construction which combine to create a powerful piece of literature. This is particularly true of “pity this busy monster manunkind,” which uses rhetorical devices such as line breaks, asides, and punctuation choices to generate meaning within the reader. The poem is, itself, an indictment of modern civilization, but it is conducted in such an abstract way, and through such a distorted lens, and it requires a reader to be astute and focused to derive the true meaning from the work. While Cummings’ work in this poem is straightforward in some ways, such as for example his word choice, his connection of disparate elements and thoughts, and creative use of words and combined words render the poem more obscure than one might think. The poem itself speaks to the fact that the natural world is divorced from the human-created world, and that humans are, by their overtaking of the natural world, becoming less and less part of the very natural world from which they were born.
Looking at Van Peer’s 1987 article “Top-Down and Bottom-Up: Interpretative Strategies in Reading E. E. Cummings” it is clear that this poem is interpreted best by using a “bottom up” strategy of reading. That is, by using a strategy that employs a close analysis of the textual and structural elements that compose the poem, which then inform a contextual and linguistic reading of the work. By examining Cummings’ literary techniques, one is able to ground one’s self in the mission of the poem, then move forward into a close reading of the text. By focusing on his unique word use and sentence structure, one is provided a window into the message of the poem. This close reading is necessary because it provides many clues as to the poet’s goals as demonstrated in the basic structure and construction of the work. Cummings plays with language to such a degree that simply beginning to analyze the overt text would be to miss a great deal of his message.
In Levin’s 1965 article Internal and External Deviation in Poetry, he argues that poetry, in the hands of many poets, is a deviant act filled with deviant behaviors. While this may sound incredibly negative, he in fact uses it to represent the idea that the writer diverges from traditional forms of construction to create meaning where there might otherwise be nonsense. Cummings’ poem is a perfect example of this. For example, he creates many compound words that, on the surface, mean very little, but when examined closely are in fact perfect descriptors for the work. The first use of this technique in the poem is in the first line and the use of the word “manunkind.” This word is nonsense. It is deviant. It lacks innate, denotative meaning. However, the connotative meaning of the word is incredibly clear. Man UN kind refers to the idea that humans are not “civilized.” They are not kind. They are not made up of well-meaning individuals. Rather, they are “man UN kind.” The next usage that continues this meaning is in line 7 ,where the author states “unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish/ returns on its unself.” This, again, sounds much like nonsense unless it is closely examined. “Unwish” is the negation of wish. By a very literal definition, “unwish” could either refer to reality, or that which is factual, or it could refer to that which is not wanted—the thing that is not wished for. In context, “unwish” seems to indicate the idea that it is something that is unwanted. The busy monster does not want something to occur so strongly that it returns on itself, from reality to unreality. The deviance of language allows for meaning in nonsense words.
The poem itself is more than its deviant language however. It continually puts the “real” and the “unreal” the “natural” and the “constructed” in juxtaposition. It is, in fact, declared at the outset—“Progress is a comfortable disease:” Progress is a disease, so negative, but comfortable, so positive. Growth and change inevitably cause pain, but they do so in a benign way. If anything, this poem discusses the banality of progress as it erodes the natural world, and the way in which humanity experiences it. “A world of made/is not a world of born.” This line sums up the poem eloquently. That is, it illustrates the idea that things which are created by manunkind are different than things that are born from the world. Humans create “a world of made” divorcing themselves from “a world of born.” They are isolated from their reality by virtue of being separate from it in their own minds. To use the poet’s language, in their “hypermagical/ultraomnipotence.” Humans place themselves as superior to nature, and lose contact with what about nature makes them human. Lines 3 and 4 are the most clear illustration of this point—“your victim (death and life safely beyond)/plays with the bigness of his littleness”. Humans, no longer connected to the natural process of death and life, are free to turn black to white, big to little. They are free to explain the world in whatever terms appeals to them, without any connection to the natural cycle of life. As such, the poet says they have created a “hopeless case” of their universe.
The poem ends with a blanket condemnation of “manunkind” but one might think to ask who the “doctors” mentioned are. Are these doctors other members of “manunkind”? Are they external agents? Are they, perhaps, the poet himself? The last seems most likely, given that there is no contextual clues to imply that other individuals are in play. In addition, humans have already been given evidence of abstract but immense power (“electrons deify one razorblade/into a mountainrange;”) which implies that perhaps they are powerful enough to abandon one world for another. The most likely interpretation, however, is that the poet himself is the doctor. After all, has not the entire poem been a case of the poet describing a “hopeless case”? The poem lays out the thought process till the doctor decrees manunkind to be irredeemable. Then, as only a poet can do, the doctor-speaker wishes to step through into a new natural world.
This poem is a scathing indictment of the modern world, as seen through the eyes of the poet. Using clever word choice and construction, he builds an environment where the nature of humanity has denied the natural world, and lost contact with it. The poet then steps out to a new universe, without question and without hesitation. The poet’s sentence and line structure, and construction of both words and phrases, communicate effectively in a bottom-up reading strategy, which allows the reader insight through the detailed examination of the very structure of the poem itself, and shows the reader that through that study it is possible to gain insight into a contextual reading of the poem itself.
Works Cited
Levin, S. “Internal and External Deviation in Poetry.” Word. 1965: 225-237. Periodical
Van Peer, W. “Top-Down and Bottom-Up: Interpretative Strategies in Reading E. E. Cummings.” New Literary History. 1987: 597-609. Periodical.
