Explore "A Survey of Modernist Poetry" by Laura Riding on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND E. E. CUMMINGS: A STUDY IN ORIGINAL PUNCTUATION AND SPELLING
THE objections that are raised against the ‘freakishness' of modernist poetry are usually supported by quotations from poems by E. E. Cummings and others which are not only difficult in construction and reference but are printed queerly on the page. The reader naturally looks for certain land-marks in the poem before he can begin to enjoy it: as the visitor to Paris naturally sets his mental map of the city by the Eiffel Tower and, if the Eiffel Tower were to collapse, would have a difficult time finding his way about for a few days. Modernist poets have removed the well-known land-marks and the reader is likewise bothered. The reasons given for this removal are that land-marks tend to make paths, that paths grow to roads, that roads soon mean walls and railings, and that the pedestrian or motorist, who must keep to the roads, never sees any new scenery.