E.E. Cummings : A Biography - Hardcover

Laucanno, Cl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0413774864 ISBN 13: 9780413774866

Publisher: Methuen, 2005

Synopsis

First comprehensive life of one of the twentieth century's greatest poetic innovators E.E. Cummings is best remembered as one of the first poets of the twentieth century to successfully unite poetic tradition with the avant garde; endlessly experimenting with the poetic form, and producing volumes of playfully iconoclastic verse. In this, the first biography of Cummings for twenty-five years, Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno uses his unprecedented access to the poet's own personal papers to present a picture of a man whose literary success was in direct contrast to the chaos of his personal life. From his strained relationship with his Harvard professor father, his war-time incarceration in a French prison camp, his extraordinary, prolific liaisons with young women (and consequent failed marriages), to his writing of some of the most remarkable and tender poetry of the twentieth century, the biographer is expert at weaving together the different and difficult elements of the poet's life. The first biography of E.E. Cummings for twenty-five years EE Cummings is read and studied on literature courses everywhere, and is probably the most prolific American poet of the last century Written with unprecedented access to Cummings' own papers

About this title

From the Publisher

"Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno’s biography of Cummings is revealing, exhaustive, and surely definitive--a bold, upper case study of America’s notorious lower-case poet."--Billy Collins

"With meticulous research and attention to detail, Sawyer-Lauçanno strips bare the life of the great poet, so that we feel we know Cummings' every thought, every woman kissed, every twist and quirk in the synthesis of genius."--Alan Lightman, author of Reunion, The Diagnosis (National Book Award finalist) and Einstein’s Dreams

"This book makes [Cummings’] life story lucidly comprehensible for the first time. It deserves first place on any short list of Cummings scholarship."--Lawrence Ferlinghetti

"This new biography of Estlin Cummings surpasses the first two in richness of detail and depth of interpretation. It goes a long way toward showing that he was a painter who wrote poems, a moralist swamped in his own sensuality, an ironist in the manner of Thoreau, and, as Ezra Pound said, Whitman's only heir."--Guy Davenport, author of The Death of Picasso, Objects on a Table and Da Vinci’s Bicycle

"An impressive amount of labor will have gone into writing this meticulously researched biography but, such is the author's lightness of touch, that it does not show. The biography is as revealing of the author's own love for and intimate knowledge of the art of writing poetry as that of his subject."--Anita Desai , author of Clear Light of Day and Fasting, Feasting

"A most readable account of E.E. Cummings' extraordinary life, both as poet and person. Ezra Pound called him the Catullus of their age and certainly his work broke initial ground for my own generation. Never simply this or that, this present biography attempts and succeeds in allowing its complex subject to be real. What a pleasure!"--Robert Creeley

About the Author

Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno is the author of a biography of Paul Bowles An Invisible Spectator

Edition details

• Publisher: Methuen
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0413774864
• ISBN 13: 9780413774866
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English