Ana Sofa Gonzlez Saravia Pea

Coming of Age through childrens songs in E.E. Cummings [In Just] and maggie and milly and molly and may

The experience of childhood has become one of the most recurrent themes in literature and popular culture and the concern to portray and explain the world through a child-like perspective is so common, that a whole literary and musical genre exists solely for this purpose. For the last couple of centuries, childrens literature and songs have changed from existing only in the oral tradition to become one of the most popular and prolific literary genres published. However, it is impossible to establish a clear line to separate adult and childrens literature. For example, in spite of being deemed as one of the most representative works of childrens literature, Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland has been analyzed and praised by academics for its treatment of philosophical topics, such as the nature of formal logic, which only adults familiarized with them could appreciate. The same way, poetry has taken some elements from childrens literature and songs to expand its thematic, imaginative and musical possibilities. One clear example of this is E. E. Cummings poetryknown by its continuous and playful experimentation with visual form, imagery and rhythm which in poems like [In Just] and maggie and milly and molly and may resembles the musicality and thematic structure common to childrens literature. These two poems are linked not only in their similarity with the images and rhythm found in childrens songs and stories, but also in their use of those elements to portray the experience of the loss of innocence and coming of age. Furthermore, they are

also similar in the importance they give to the presence of Nature and its role in the process of maturity and transition from childhood to adulthood suffered by the characters in both poems. The first child-like element shared by these poems is the role that games play in the ritual of the loss of innocence. In maggie and milly and molly and may, play is the element that first appears and establishes the setting for the rest of the actions in the poem: maggie and milly and molly and may /went down to the beach(to play one day) (Cummings 1-2). By establishing play as the first action of the poem, the tone becomes child-like, and the subsequent actions are perceived under that innocent and playful perspective. However, as the poem progresses, the reader is faced with a series of games and discoveries that, in spite of being innocent in their origin, grow darker and more complex: and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone. (3-10) The following games keep their child-like quality through the verbs, images and adjectives used by the poetic voice: discover, befriended, and sweetly maintain the innocent and tender tone of the poem, and a singing shell, a thing which blows bubbles, and a humanized star create fantastic and playful images that are commonly related to childrens games and imagination. Furthermore, the constant alliteration, rhyme and meter in the poem emphasize the similarity of the poem with popular childrens rhymes and songs. However,

there are also dark elements intertwined within these child-like images because fear, loneliness, and trouble are the unexpected results from those games. That way, what begins as seemingly and innocent actionto go the beach to playsets foot for a series of discoveries which transform the characters in the poem. They gradually lose the innocence of their games as the experience gained from them is painful, and because of this change in the characters, the poems tone changes from the innocent one it had at the beginning. In the case of [In Just], games are not the central action of the poem, but they also serve as a mean to symbolize the loss of innocence. Just as in maggie and milly, the first image is an image of play and innocence which creates a tone that transports the reader to a setting he or she can relate to childhood: in Justspring when the world is mud-

luscious the little lame balloonman

whistles

far

and wee (1-5)

However, the setting created by this image is not as clear and direct as the firststanza of maggie and milly The image is created by two equally important elements: spring and the balloon man. These two elements are usually associated with childhood since spring is known as the season related to young and new life, and the balloon man is an image related to joy and play. Yet, the way these two objects are depicted affects the setting of the poem and changes its apparently playful and innocent tone into a darker one.

Even though it is described as a perfect spring, a spring at its highest pointa Just springthe image conveyed in the poem is not that of a lively, colorful season. Instead of that, the reader is presented with a mud-luscious world, a world that is at the same time filled with dirt and with sensuality. Not only that, but the grammatical ambiguity caused by the arrangement of the lines attributes the adjective luscious to the balloon man as well; thus, transforming his image from one of an innocent bringer of joy to that of a lame and sexual man who, as the poem progresses, becomes more and more deformed, going from lame to queer, and at the end turning into a goat-footed man: the devil, and this sexual, diabolic character has the power to turn children from the innocence of their games: and eddieandbill come/running from marbles and/piracies and it's/ spring (6-8) and bettyandisbel come dancing/from hop-scotch and jump-rope. (13-14) The childrens games are interrupted then by the calling of spring, represented through the whistling of the balloon man; a sound vividly depicted by the arrangement of the distance between the words far and wee which, as the poem progresses, becomes shorter. Because of this, the speed in the rhythm increases and, with the onomatopoeic word wee, imitates the sound of a whistle. So, the whistling produced by this devilish, luscious man attracts the children and makes them leave their games and follow something else, and by abandoning their childish occupations, the boys and girls abandon their child-like nature as well. The fact that this loss of childhood and of innocence is experienced by two boys and two girls is not coincidental if one is to take into account that it happens a season of lusciousness and sexual awakening. Therefore, coming of age in [In Just] is directly linked with sexual discovery: boys and girls hear the call of the devilalso related to lustat springtime, and because of this they leave their childhood games. Nature, thus, plays an essential role in the ritual of maturity in

the poem. This is an element which is also present in maggie and milly and molly and may. However, it is not the power of spring which brings about the change in the characters, but the influence of the sea: For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) /it's always ourselves we find in the sea. (11-12) The girls journey to beach and their subsequent encounters with the creatures and objects which inhabit it serve as a metaphor for the discovery and maturity of one self through the experience of pain and loneliness. The girls lose their identity in childhoodlike a you or a methrough the games they play with the shell, the horrible thing, the star and the stone, but the experience gained from these interactions result in a new identity, a new ourselves in adulthood. Therefore, both poems present two different metaphors which represent the transition from childhood into adulthood. [In Just] uses sexual awakening as the medium by which innocence is lost, and maggie and milly and molly and may represents maturity as the reconstruction of ones identity through the experience of suffering and loneliness. Both poems use Nature as the catalytic element which not only triggers, but guides the characters transformation into adults as well, and in order to portray this transformation, the general structure, imagery and tone of these poems resemble the one used in popular childrens songs and literature. That way, Cummings poetry exemplifies how the inclusion of elements related to art expressions commonly directed to children enriches adult poetry, because they emphasize the experience of learning and maturity by portraying it through a child-like perspective which creates and immediate link to the readers own personal experience.

WORKS CITED: E.E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may Consulted at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406 on May 13th, 2012. [In Just] Consulted at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176657 on May 13th, 2012.