the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things—
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
.... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
What initially drew me to this poem was its familiar fourteen line format, although it began familiarly it quickly strayed from the familiar Shakespearean sonnet that I was most familiar with. The refreshing balance of a quick rush of words and the structured pattern
- Metaphor → “the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls / are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds” (1,2). Here the Cambridge ladies or more specifically their souls are compared to the decor of furnished rooms; their minds are filled with ideas that have been passed down for generations.
- Rhyme → If you look closely, the poem has a rhyme scheme of abcddcba efggfe. Although its nature is rigid and confining, Cummings seems to disregard conformity and take liberties with the traditional rhyme scheme.
- Oxymoron → “box of sky / lavender and cornerless” (12, 13). The oxymoronic image of the sky as a cornerless box gives the reader a feeling of the author’s liberation from the confining expectations of society. Broken up with page breaks, the sonnet borders between conformity and freedom unlike the Cambridge ladies.
Please comment on this post when you get a chance. How do the literary devices I have identified or any others relate to the purpose of the poem as a whole?
ReplyDeleteI found this poem a little hard to understand. I am assuming he is referring to the University of Cambridge when he says "Cambridge ladies", but I don't know if he is referring to female students or the professors wives. Whoever these women are, they seem to be interesting and intelligent. I like the description of them as being "unbeautiful". This does not necessarily mean ugly, I think it means that they are not traditionally beautiful, which makes them more interesting. The metaphor of them having "furnished souls" to me means that they are full of interesting thoughts and ideas. Their souls are not empty, they are fully "furnished". These women are "invariably interested in so many things" and seem to be very strong, intelligent women.
ReplyDeleteLike Eden, I thought this poem was very confusing. It seemed to me like it was a just a continuous sentence of what a person was thinking in their mind; one stream of thoughts. Towards the beginning it seemed just like a list of what the "Cambridge ladies" were like and later it just got confusing. I agree with Eden that the word "unbeautiful" is an exquisite word to use in this poem, because, like this poem, the word "unbeautiful" is quirky and odd. I did really like the last line: "the Cambridge ladies do not care, above Cambridge if sometimes in its box of sky lavender and cornerless, the moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy". I did not necessarily understand what the lines meant, however, I thought the connotation was beautiful. In my opinion, the word choice is what makes this poem a winner because not many probably understand the meaning but the imagery and wording stands out to me.
ReplyDeleteSomething that bothered me at first was a couple of un-capitolized letters and lack of punctuation: both the title and the first word of the poem is un-capitolized, as well as the “perhaps” after a finished sentence. Additionally, the only period in this poem follows the one word, “perhaps”, and besides the question in the middle of the poem, no other punctuation concludes any sentences. It seemed like one long trail of thought, as Audrey pointed out. This disregard of grammar, however, may be intentional by Cummings. The “Cambridge ladies” don’t seem limited by traditional ways of thinking. Their thoughts, like the poem, are imaginative and unexpected, contradicting rules. The oxymoron that Lisa pointed out in the last sentence is another way for Cummings to demonstrate the Cambridge ladies’ unorthodox minds.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to the others, I found this poem initially hard to comprehend. After deeper analyzing the poem, I seem to have a different understanding of the poem than the others who have commented. When speaking of the “Cambridge ladies” I thought the author viewed them as unimaginative and not interesting. They have no worldly interests besides what is occurring within Cambridge and the people they know, they “do not care, above Cambridge if sometimes in its box of sky lavender and cornerless, the moon rattles” (11-14). They appear to be wealthy individuals who lack individuality and who are most interested in “Christ and Longfellow” who are “both dead” (5). The use of metaphor and simile in the poem add to the speaker’s descriptions, including their ignorance of when “the moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy” (14) and the women’s “furnished souls” (1).
ReplyDelete