In all the works of Edward Estlin Cummings there is real delight in the absurd, the comical, even the clownish. Yet his poems, under a closer look, reveal a more serious purpose than mere amusement: by distorting the physical appearance of the words and phrases of a tired language, Cummings forces the readers attention back to their real meaning. In an amazing way, the freshness of language found in Cummings' poetry mirrors the freshness of instinctive response to existence. With a dialectic of poetic language expounded by Mukarovsky and other theoreticians, this paper aims to expose the novelty and experimental nature of Cummings' poetic language, above all, the game and the play of language itself.
