Anyone Lived In A Pretty How Town Analysis

“…E.E. Cummings experimented with poetic form and language to create a distinct personal style. A typical Cummings poem is spare and precise, employing a few key words eccentrically placed on the page. Some of these words were invented by Cummings, often by combining two common words into a new synthesis.” (E.E. Cummings). As stated by Poetry Foundation, E.E. Cummings has a unique poetic style, which is no different from his poem anyone lived in a pretty how town. In this poem, Cummings writes about a man and his wife, who lose their identities and eventually die without a single person in the world caring. He discusses the revolutionary change of seasons and how life is beautiful, but death is inevitable. His abstract style of writing and usage of the words “anyone” and “no one” conveys the major motifs of love, death, and loss of identity. Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October of 1894. He began writing poems as early as 1904, but did not begin studying them until he attended High School in Cambridge. He furthered

In anyone lived in a pretty how town, it is evident that “anyone” has double meaning. Cummings intended for “anyone” to represent any single person, but also to symbolize a man. The man’s wife is labeled as “noone” or in general terms, society as a whole. Line 14 reads, “she laughed his joy and cried his grief,” (955) which makes it clear that “anyone” and “noone” are lovers. It is obvious the couple is madly in love with each other, but become too caught up in life, which causes them to lose their identities. Eventually, “anyone” dies, but “noone” cares because she becomes too focused on the unimportant aspects of life. As the poem progresses, it is evident that Cummings wants the readers to be aware that death exists, but that does not mean it is acceptable to ignore the identities of other for the sake of