Iain Landles

The Case for Cummings: a Reaction to the Critical Misreading of E.e. Cummings Iain Landles

'The Case for Cummings' shows how E. E. Cummings hasbecome fixed in criticism due to a misreading of his work bycritics. Many critics in the 1920s were hostile to Cummings, forcing Cummingsâ¿¿ supporters to either defend or apologise for him. Thus, in the 1920s pro-Cummingsian critics defined and fixed the â¿¿battleground' - collectively collating Cummingsâ¿¿â¿¿themesâ¿¿ - love, spring, satire, individualism, and transcendence â¿"yet these areas became the very source of attack fromanti-Cummingsian critics. This investigation, utilizing the literary theoriesof Derrida, Bakhtin, Foucault, Bloom, and Cixous, among others, aims toshow how both sides have misread Cummingsâ¿¿ work and in doing sosees a â¿¿newâ¿¿ Cummings emerge, a Cummings who appears less fixed incriticism, who is more complex and richer in scope than firstthought, and whose work demands major re-evaluation.