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Poet: e.e. cummings
Poem: )when what hugs stopping earth than silent is... (16)
Comment 6 of 6, added on February 19th, 2007 at 5:34 PM.
Though I don't think this poem was meant as a religious commentary either, it should be noted that Cummings was in fact very religious. His statement "And death i think is no parenthesis," in the context of the poem it is taken from, is, I think, simply a comment that one should live life to the fullest and focus on feeling instead of the strict rules of humanity because death is inevitable. It should not be taken as evidence that Cummings does not believe in an afterlife.
Stephanie from United States
Comment 5 of 6, added on April 28th, 2006 at 12:27 PM.
The poet is expressing the cycle of life and death, but he is not merely reporting. There is an undercurrent of pathos that speaks to a forgetfulness of the unity of all. The light of Life, which imbues All -- "the total sun oceaning" -- is "more silent... than much more is." Is there a deeper Silence than this?! And if this immense silent 'void' -- the "immeasurable happenless unnow" -- was to "shut more than open," death would prevail over Life. The poet is merely pondering -- what if...?
And yet he continues: Dolls are playthings, therefore, "joy and grief" are the mere games of shadowy entities who don't know who or what they really are (what is substance, what is shadow?). Until, out of the void of nothingness (which is "merely not nothing") shines the Oneness of Life -- the One snowflake: i.e., the prototypical Form of all subsequent expressions of Life. And the manifest and diverse expressions ("we speak our names"), which are rooted in the unity of the One, begin the cycle once again -- name and form are born. And this happens in the eternal Now -- gone are "memories of future" events. The uniqueness of the One is expressed in the many in an endless cycle ("end of endings"), beyond time and space, eternally.
Brian Haley from Canada
Comment 4 of 6, added on February 13th, 2006 at 11:31 AM.
"Death i think is not a paranthesis"
-E.E. Cummings
That statement illustrates his hedonistic beliefs on life. Lacking a belief in an afterlife, evident in this statement, it is a logical conclusion to doubt he had any religious beliefs- especially on the topis concerning this poem.
Jefferson Floyd
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Though I don't think this poem was meant as a religious commentary either, it should be noted that Cummings was in fact very religious. His statement "And death i think is no parenthesis," in the context of the poem it is taken from, is, I think, simply a comment that one should live life to the fullest and focus on feeling instead of the strict rules of humanity because death is inevitable. It should not be taken as evidence that Cummings does not believe in an afterlife.
Stephanie from United States