Speaking without litotes

You use litotes when, instead of saying something directly, you say the negation of its opposite.  People do this all the time, for example, when A asks, "What's up?" and B answers, "Not much."  Without litotes, B would have answered:  "Little."

Here is another example, and this is from George Orwell:  "A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field."  Without the three litotes, that would have been:  "A black dog was chasing a small rabbit across a green field."  See how ridiculous that sounds with litotes?

So here is a last example, and this one is about what happened to me just yesterday night:  With litotes, I did not win the powerball, which wouldn't have been all that dramatic, but without litotes, I lost the powerball  :(  Sometimes, contemplating language can really get you depressed ...

Freedom!

So now we're done with blogging for our grades  :)  And not just for the semester, because Rob said he won't assign a blog to our Advanced Journalism class in Spring.

Which means I'm now blogging of my own free will, which means I'll be spending more time on the blog now (such as blogging during the weekend, which is what I'm doing today).  Of course, this is exactly what I needed:  Another time drain, on top of the Math, the German, the poetry, and the photography  :(  But I have already had some experience with myself, from which I know that it's no use trying to resist ...  On the other hand, at least I'll now get to skip the blog on days that are otherwise hard.

I'll stop for today with this poem, attributed to Dorothy Parker, that caught my eye when I was researching martinis on the internet earlier this afternoon:

I like to have a martini
Two, at the very most
Three, I'm under the table
Four, I'm under my host

And the typical poem

To end the week, here's a poem that would be considered typical of Cummings.  This is the 67th poem in his 1958 "95 Poems", the same book as the sonnet "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in" that I posted at the beginning of the week:
______________________

By E.E. Cummings

this little huge

-eyed per-
son(nea
-rly burs-

ting with the

in
-expressib-
le

num

-berlessn-
ess of her
selves)can't

u

-nderstan-
d my o
-nl-

y me

The required elements

Having posted sonnets on the first three days, I should probably shift now to other poems that are considered mandatory whenever Cummings' work is discussed.  This one is the 29th poem in his 1940 "50 Poems":

________________________

By E.E. Cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town

(with up so floating many bells down)

spring summer autumn winter

he sang his didn't he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)

cared for anyone not at all

they sowed their isn't they reaped their same

sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few

and down they forgot as up they grew

autumn winter spring summer)

that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf

she laughed his joy she cried his grief

bird by snow and stir by still

anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones

laughed their cryings and did their dance

(sleep wake hope and then)they

said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon

(and only the snow can begin to explain

how children are apt to forget to remember

with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess

(and noone stooped to kiss his face) 

busy folk buried them side by side

little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep

and more by more they dream their sleep

noone and anyone earth by april

wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)

summer autumn winter spring

reaped their sowing and went their came

sun moon stars rain

Tetrameter sonnet

Okay, so if Cummings mostly wrote sonnets, but is mostly known for his more experimental work, then those few sonnets of his which are also widely known are exceptions (to the aforementioned fact), which suggests that those few sonnets may be exceptional.  What I posted yesterday, and also what I posted on Monday, are, in fact, widely known, as is the piece I'm posting today  :)  This one is the last sonnet in the 9-sonnet cycle "Sonnets---Realities" in Cummings' 1925 "& (AND)", and its lines are not the usual (for sonnets) pentameter, but mostly tetrameter.  Note also the rhyme scheme (and also the exhilarating use of alliteration, and also the British spelling):
_______________________

From Sonnets---Realities

By E.E. Cummings

IX

in making Marjorie god hurried
a boy's body on unsuspicious
legs of girl. his left hand quarried
the quartzlike face. his right slapped
the amusing big vital vicious
vegetable of her mouth.
Upon the whole he suddenly clapped
a tiny sunset of vermouth
-colour. Hair. he put between
her lips a moist mistake, whose fragrance hurls
me into tears,as the dusty new-
ness of her obsolete gaze begins to. lean....
a little against me, when for two
dollars i fill her hips with boys and girls

Cummings, contd.

Another sonnet.  This is the 6th of an 18-sonnet cycle called "Sonnets---Unrealities" from the second ("Chimneys") part of Cummings' 1922 "Tulips & Chimneys":
____________________________________

From Sonnets—Unrealities 

VI

By E.E. Cummings

god gloats upon Her stunning flesh.  Upon

the reachings of Her green body among

unseen things, things obscene (Whose fingers young

the caving ages curiously con)

—but the lunge of Her hunger softly flung

over the gasping shores

                                    leaves his smile wan,

and his blood stopped hears in the frail anon

the shovings and the lovings of Her tongue.

god Is The Sea.  All terrors of his being

quake before this its hideous Work most old

Whose battening gesture prophecies a freeing

of ghostly chaos

                        in this dangerous night

through moaned space god worships God—

                                                                        (behold!

where chaste stars writhe captured in brightening fright)

Last week

I mean "last week" in two different senses:  First, I skipped the blog last week because I was mostly drunk in Chicago (drunk trying to get over how badly I was doing on the GDS exam); second, I found out in class today that this is going to be the last week we have to keep a blog.

Since I haven't done a week on a definite theme yet, I decided to do that for this week.  I have my copy of E.E. Cummings' Collected Poems here in my office (as opposed to most of my books, which are in boxes I still haven't unpacked after moving in August), so I'll do my theme week on that.

Contrary to the popular perception that Cummings was primarily an experimental poet, about two-thirds of all his poems are sonnets---the reason why I bought this book in the first place was that I wanted to learn from him how a sonnet works---so I'm posting a sonnet today.  This is the 92nd poem in his 1958 book "95 Poems":
__________________________________
92

By E.E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                       i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)