in Just / Buffalo Bill’s /
anyone lived in a pretty how town
e. e. cummings
Presented by Rebecca
Vita
Revised by Cecilia H. C. Liu
e. e. cummings
 Edward Estlin Cummings
 born in Cambridge,
Massachusetts
 artist, playwright and
novelist
 Known for typographic
innovation, Cummings
controlled both the look
and the content of his
poems.
 ViVa 1931
 No actual titles
 Love poetry
About the poem
“somewhere I have never travelled,
gladly beyond”






Love
Power
The speaker
Ann Barton
Imagery: Human anatomy and nature contradictory
E. E. Cummings married three times. His first marriage to
Elaine Orr (who left her husband for him) lasted only 6
months. His second marriage, to Ann Barton was a stormy,
passionate one lasting only a few years. He at last met
Marion Morehouse, an actress, model, and photographer,
whom he married and lived with for the remaining 30 years
of his life.
In Just
Celebrates the arrival of spring from a
children’s point of view.
Grouped with poems called “Chansons
Innocentes” →Blake’s “Songs of
Innocence” and “Songs of Experience.”
Pattern
3 regular stanzas: 3 quatrains + 2 refrains
Dwindled pattern
Marbles
Hopscotch
4-1-4-1-4-1-4-1-4
Symbol
 Children → spring time
 Pan: god of music and
play; god of the goatherds
and shepherds.
 Christian conception:
devil/shepherd.
 Long vowels: “lame balloonman,” “far and wee…”
 Wide spacing and line-breaks:
1. dramatic pauses
2. distance: the space of far and wee (“far and
wide” or “far and away”)
eddiandbill / bettyandisbel: suggest a child’s
running of words together breathlessly.
 balloonMan: naïve qualification by the speaker.
“Buffalo Bill’s”
 Buffalo Bill: a famous wild west showman in America.
 The word “defunct” instead of “dead.” (l. 2)
 The speaker admires Buffalo Bill’s skill in shooting
and his good looks. (ll. 6, 8)
 “how do you like your blueeyed boy”(l. 10)
a sarcasm.
 The death cancels Buffalo Bill’s skill and erases his
good looks.
 A self-portrait of a disdainful speaker.
 Be unaware of a logical flaw in his reasoning and the
irony of his situation.
anyone lived in a pretty how town
 By using contrast between characters’ daily lives
in “the pretty how town” (suggesting modern
society), cummings satirizes the fight against
individual by society.
 Characters: (3 groups)
* anyone, noone  spiritual values
* someones, everyones social values
* children  between the individualists and the
conformists
Contrast between the two groups
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
the bell: melody-like vs. sounds only
time: seasons vs. days (clock)
live happily vs. live reluctantly
care vs. indifference
life vs. death
spiritual values vs. social values
The speaker is also worried that the
children might become conformists when
they grow up.
Playful tone: anyone, noone, someones,
everyones.
The contrast between those who prefer
individual spiritual values and the selfinterested who prefer earthen values.
Works Cited
 E.E. Cummings (1894-1962). The Norton Anthology of
American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. Shorter 5th Edition.
New York: Norton, 1999. 2112-20.
 Picture sources:
<http://www.burbankymca.org/images/jumprope-copy.jpg>.
<http://www.exposingmyself.net/2005/bag-o-marbles/>.
<http://www.geocities.com/ SoHo/8454/eecs.jpg>.
<http://www.streetplay.com/photos/images/hopscotch.jpg>.