The two poems under consideration in this essay are “Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town” by Edward Eslin Cummings and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson. Both poems are well-known works by equally well-known poets and both dwell on such philosophical issues as life and death, their quality and meaning.
Cummings’s poem is more about life and its passage than about death. In that typical manner of his based on the play of words and syntactical structures, Cummings conveys an idea of transience of life. In addition, he points out that often people live but do not notice the time pass; they do not notice people around. People are too busy to pay attention to the things that do not concern them directly:
Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all (Cummings, n.d.).
Cummings says, though, that there are individuals that still notice the changes in the world. These are children:
Children guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew) (Cummings, n.d.).
It is said, however, that as soon as children get older, they become just like all the others in town.
In contrast to Cummings’s poem, Emily Dickinson’s one is more about death than about life. Death is personified in the poem. It is depicted as an obliging beau who is happy to help and please a person in case any assistance is needed:
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me (Dickinson, n.d.).
The phrase seems to be ironic in a way since no one can actually want to be assisted by Death. The word “kindly” even strengthens the irony of the situation.
Just like Cummings’s poem, Dickinson’s one also stresses the idea of transience of life. People do not notice the life fly until the moment of death: they work, raise children, and do all other different things without noticing the trifles which actually make their lives happy and complete. The poem says:
He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too (Dickinson, n.d.).
Emily Dickinson shows how the main character accompanied by her “beau” passes all the things that constituted her life – school with children at recess, fields with grain, the sun, and dews. Everything indicates that her life is getting to its end. All these things disappear from her sight, both school and fields; and the sun is setting since her days are over; and the dews bring chill rather than refreshment.
Thus, both poems under study, despite their obvious differences in style and images used by the poets, seem to tell their readers the same thing – pay attention to every moment of your life and to every person you meet because, otherwise, your life will pass and you will not even notice it is over. And moreover, if you live your life in a fruitless way, no one will remember you after your death since you will be just “anyone” or “someone”, but not a person with a name and a face.
References
Anyone lived in a pretty how town: Edward Estlin Cummings - Summary and Critical Analysis. (n.d.). Bachelor and Master. Retrieved from http://www.bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/anyone-lived-in-a-pretty-how-town.html#.Vt63kX2LTIV
Cummings, E.E. (n.d.). Anyone lived in a pretty how town. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/11856
Dickinson, E. (n.d.). Because I could not stop for Death. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177119
