i by E E Cummings

i by E E Cummings

“Marvelously unconventional...a credo of intense individualism.”—Atlantic

A brilliantly eccentric autobiography from one of the most widely read poets of the twentieth century.

“Let me cordially warn you, at the opening of these socalled lectures, that I haven’t the remotest intention of posing as a lecturer.” So begins the first of six delightfully off-kilter “nonlectures” delivered at Harvard in 1952–1953. Gleefully flouting the conventions of the prestigious Charles Eliot Norton Professorship in Poetry, which had previously hosted T. S. Eliot, Igor Stravinsky, and other luminaries, E. E. Cummings declines to offer anything in the way of critical analysis, citing Rainer Maria Rilke’s contention that “Works of art are of an infinite loneliness and with nothing to be so little reached as with criticism.”

Instead, six nonlectures presents a kaleidoscopic tour of the great poet’s life, influences, and favorite poems, from Chaucer, Wordsworth, and Swinburne to selections of his own work. After an autobiographical sketch of his youth in Cambridge, Massachusetts—including reflections on his father’s tragic death, accounts of his formative relationships with the pragmatist philosophers William James and Josiah Royce, stories from his days as a Harvard undergraduate, and readings of his earliest attempts at poetry—Cummings captivates with stream-of-consciousness musings on a dizzying array of subjects: freedom and democracy, New York and Paris, Lenin’s tomb and high-speed elevators, death and Santa Claus.

Replete with digressions, irreverent wordplay, and, of course, parentheses, six nonlectures is a moving tribute to the spirit of artistic individuality, that dedication to unmitigated personal truth without which the poet “would cease to exist at all.”

Six marvelously unconventional lectures… An aesthetic self-portrait and a definition of MrCummings’s ‘stance’ as a writer. Full of originality, high spirits, and aphoristic dicta, they express a credo of intense individualism. * The Atlantic *
E. E. Cummings has given so much delight over the years—by his poetry, his painting, and his personality—that a deeply serious side of him, that of the dedicated man, has been overlooked… i: six nonlectures should help to bring him into sharper focus; [it is] the autobiography of a man who, through all the strange deviations of a strange age, has remained true to himself—one, moreover, so completely creative that even his lectures, which he calls ‘nonlectures,’ offer new esthetic experiences… Seldom, indeed, has the subject of the creator and the creative faculty been so frankly and inspiringly present. * Saturday Review *
In flashes of the nonlecturing, and steadily in the readings, the always surprising freshness, the durability, the high-spirited and deep-rooted resources of E. E. Cummings’ work are made apparent to us once more. For this sufficient reason, i is a blessing. * New England Quarterly *
What a book, what a poet, what a man, what a patriot, what a proud nation he is the first (and only?) citizen of—no, he didn’t discover New Jersey, nuclear fission, or nucoa, just himself. -- William Saroyan * The Nation *

E. E. Cummings (1894–1962) was an American poet and painter. The author of thousands of poems, three volumes of experimental prose, and two plays, he was the recipient of an American Academy of Poets Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and the Bollingen Prize for Poetry.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780674440104
ISBN 10	0674440102
Title	i
Author	E E Cummings
Series	The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Harvard University Press
Year published	1991-01-01
Number of pages	128
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.