Childhoods in Poetry

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, unlike poets of their period who wrote mainly about war and people suffering, E.E. Cummings "in Just" and Dylan Thomas' "Fern Hill" discuss their childhoods. The author points out that, although both Cummings and Thomas use a lot of visual images to trigger the reader's senses, thus making the poem more believable to the reader, Cummings also uses a lot of coinage such as "mudluscious", which makes the reader think of what the world would be like if it were covered in mud. The paper relates that Dylan Thomas in "Fern Hill" uses a formal, complicated words, in long stanzas, because he is not writing about a child or for a child but rather in an adult's perspective for an adult; E.E. Cummings "in Just" uses informal diction because he is writing in a child's perspective.

From the Paper:

"E.E. Cummings writes about childhood in a third person narrative. It is as if he is outside of the mainstream. Cummings is on the outside trying to look into what it is like to be a child. This is why he writes in a child's perspective. People are given a chance to start fresh. Everything becomes new once again. People's spirits are awakened and it is as if they have been given a second chance at happiness, and carefree. Dylan Thomas has a different approach to writing about childhood than Cummings. Thomas writes in a first person narrative. He does not write as a child's perspectives, instead, he writes as an adult, in an adult's perspective. He is looking back on his childhood, as an adult."

More papers on Childhoods in Poetry:

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• Analytical Essay # 41698 : "Fatherhood in Poetry"

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