I Carry Your Heart With Me

“i carry your heart with me” Sonnets have been evident in literature for ages, and have been known to contain some of the most famous lines and structures. A traditional Shakespearean sonnet has fourteen lines, and is broken up into lines of four and then a couplet at the end. The sonnet also follows a distinct pattern of rhythm called iambic pentameter. There are also other versions of sonnets such as Petrarchan, which is broken up into two stanzas of eight and six lines. Yet it still follows iambic pentameter. The rhyme schemes for both are similar but can be changed often based on the intent of the author. The sonnet “i carry your heart with me”, by E.E. Cummings creates meaning through the lack of structure he uses. There is no true

The way the work is written, there are more than ten syllables in each line, and words aren’t stressed as they are expected to be. When listening to the poem read aloud there are certain words stressed though, the words stressed the most are heart, me, darling, fear, sweet, world, my, bud, sky, life, higher, wonder, stars, and apart. The speaker pays special attention to these words, and this is again to draw the attention to them. In drawing attention to these words the speaker helps detail the meaning with the author’s possession of his lover, and how he can connect their love to the earth and universe. The rhyme scheme is completely unordinary, only four lines in the entire poem rhyme. This is to help create meaning through stressing certain lines. The couplet that rhymes at the end says “and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart, i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)”(Cummings. 14-15). Cummings is trying to draw the reader’s attention to these lines. These lines meaning of this secret, is so important that it is even having an effect on the universe. Then the second line is revealing that special secret, this secret is truly not a secret because the narrator has been expressing his love to his lover for the entire poem. The narrator believes that this line even if it is not a secret still has enough meaning to pull the stars apart. Again adding to the meaning of their love being universal, and stronger than anyone