Heather Bond “Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town” has a complexity of superimposed sensuous and mental impressions. The most striking pattern is obviously the revolution of the seasons, which is indicated by the rotating list of the names. With each of the abstract terms E.E Cummings associates a natural phenomenon characterizing the particular season on the sensuous level of human experience so that one may stand symbolically for the other; the sun represents summer, the moon represents autumn, the stars represent winter, and the rain represents spring. The vertical sequence in the poem corresponds to our expectations and desires. The poet echoes his unequal impression by referring to it insistently in the following lines: “snow”, “died”, “buried”, “was by was”, “deep by deep”. The shift from single words to pair of words announces rhythmically the return of movement of life. “Earth by April” contrasts identical elements and associates two opposites, death and spring; the block of repetitiveness is falling apart, a movement in time and away from the harsh element. After this reference to spring, the text moves on directly to summer, pointing forward to autumn, however, through the association of “reaped-sowing” and the synonymous “went their came”. The final emphasis remains on “summer” and “sun” at the beginning, “spring” and “rain” at the end of the lines. Thus, spring opens the cycle in the first stanza and it concludes two lines in the last. Life has come full circle, but the end is also a beginning. The cyclical recurrence of birth, grown, and decline, represents the movement of the seasons. The poem has three parts of three stanzas each. These parts contain a pattern of references to the different groups of persons mentioned; anyone, women and men, children, no one, someone’s and everyone’s. So far the hierarchy descends from the lovers through the indifferent mass of adults to
Heather Bond “Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town” has a complexity of superimposed sensuous and mental impressions. The most striking pattern is obviously the revolution of the seasons, which is indicated by the rotating list of the names. With each of the abstract terms E.E Cummings associates a natural phenomenon characterizing the particular season on the sensuous level of human experience so that one may stand symbolically for the other; the sun represents summer, the moon represents autumn, the stars represent winter, and the rain represents spring. The vertical sequence in the poem corresponds to our expectations and desires. The poet echoes his unequal impression by referring to it insistently in the following lines: “snow”, “died”, “buried”, “was by was”, “deep by deep”. The shift from single words to pair of words announces rhythmically the return of movement of life. “Earth by April” contrasts identical elements and associates two opposites, death and spring; the block of repetitiveness is falling apart, a movement in time and away from the harsh element. After this reference to spring, the text moves on directly to summer, pointing forward to autumn, however, through the association of “reaped-sowing” and the synonymous “went their came”. The final emphasis remains on “summer” and “sun” at the beginning, “spring” and “rain” at the end of the lines. Thus, spring opens the cycle in the first stanza and it concludes two lines in the last. Life has come full circle, but the end is also a beginning. The cyclical recurrence of birth, grown, and decline, represents the movement of the seasons. The poem has three parts of three stanzas each. These parts contain a pattern of references to the different groups of persons mentioned; anyone, women and men, children, no one, someone’s and everyone’s. So far the hierarchy descends from the lovers through the indifferent mass of adults to