e. e. cummings

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An American poet who wrote poems with unusual spacing and punctuation

proper noun
/iː iː ˈkʌmɪŋz/

Literature

: e. e. cummings

e. e. cummings often broke traditional rules of grammar and syntax in his poetry.

Examples

The experimental poetry of e. e. cummings has inspired many modern writers.
I wrote my thesis on the use of imagery in e. e. cummings's poems.
I love the works of e. e. cummings.
Did you read e. e. cummings' poetry?
e. e. cummings is celebrated for his unique approach to language and form in poetry.
Many students study the works of e. e. cummings for their artistic innovation.
e. e. cummings is known for his playful use of punctuation and spacing in his poems.

Surface Forms

e. e. cummings main

Morphology

e. + e. + cummings

This is a proper name composed of initials and a surname, not a compositional phrase; knowing the individual tokens 'e.', 'e.' and 'cummings' (which are not meaningful lexical items) does not let a learner infer the referent or that it names an American poet. Proper names are arbitrary lexical items across languages, so the meaning cannot be derived from the constituents and is not transparent to a B1 learner.

Etymology

E. e. cummings is often written in 'small letters' because the poet liked to print his name that way to break normal writing rules and make the name look like his poems. So the lowercase form is an easy memory hook that shows his unusual, experimental style.