"Somewhere I Have Never Traveled"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how Cummings' poem, "Somewhere I Have Never Traveled", offers a compelling depiction of love as a total, transforming experience that has a life and death power over the person that is in love. It examines how the power of love, although immeasurable, is subtle as the power of nature and its influence on the lovers is overwhelming and how the poem thus translates the experience of love as one of the most crucial elements in the life of man. It also looks at how the significance of the poem resides primarily in the fact that it offers an insight into the way in which love acts as a commanding force on man, being part of the intimate rhythm of life, along with birth and death.

From the Paper:

"First of all, love is apt to transform the self and to penetrate into its innermost recesses. The woman lover to whom the poem is addressed as well as love itself are seen as agents or mysterious forces. The first line hints at a displacement of the self through a miraculous, previously unknown experience or sensation: "somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience". The idea of a journey into the unknown suggests the overpowering and new sensations brought by the intrusion of love into the poet's life. The next two lines emphasize powerful mastery of love, which is able to 'enclose' or entrap the poet's self: "in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, /or which i cannot touch because they are too near." "

Sample of Sources Used:

• cummings, e. e. somewhere i have never traveled.

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