The Enormous Room [1922] Notes and Links

The Enormous Room is E. E. Cummings' account of his detention in 1917 in a French prison camp in the town of La Ferté-Macé in Orne, Normandy. Two editions of The Enormous Room are available— and though we prefer Liveright "typescript" edition of 1978, we offer here a version of The Enormous Room page with notes keyed to page numbers in the Penguin edition.  LINKS:  Headrick, Paul. "'Brilliant Obscurity': The Reception of The Enormous Room." Spring 1 (1992): 46-76.  ---. "The Enormous Room and the Uses of Parody." Spring 2 (1993): 48-56. Olsen, Taimi. "Language and Silence in the Enormous Room (1922)" Spring 1 (1992): 77-86.  "William Slater Brown and The Enormous Room." Spring 1 (1992): 87-91.  Mott, Christopher M. "The Cummings Line on Race." Spring 4 (1995): 71-75] Collier, James Lincoln. "'B' [William Slater Brown]." Spring 6 (1997): 128-151.  Gill, John M. "The Enormous Room and 'The Windows of Nowhere': Reflections on Visiting La Ferté Macé." Spring 7 (1998): 94-123. Martin, W. Todd. "'The Mysteries of Noyon': Emblem and Meaning in The Enormous Room." Spring 10 (2000): 125-31.

Notes, chapters I-V

(3) my friend B. —based upon Cummings' friend William Slater Brown.
(3) poilus = "hairy ones" [French]. The (affectionate) slang word for ordinary French foot soldiers in World War I. Most French phrases are translated in a "Glossary" at the back of the book (253-272). 

(18) a tall, bearded, horrified man = Robinson Crusoe, hero of Daniel Defoe's famous novel. Of course, C. refers to the scene where Crusoe discovers that he is not alone on the island: "But now I come to a new scene of my life. It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand. I stood like one thunder-struck, or as if I had seen an apparition" (Defoe 152). For a view of both Crusoe and The Enormous Room as spiritual autobiographies, see Boire, "'An Inconceivable Vastness'."

(29) sang La Madelon—Song written in 1914 by Louis Bousquet (lyrics) and Camille Robert (music), it was very popular with French soldiers in WW I. The lyrics tell of a waitress named Madelon who works at a café named Au Vrai Poilu. She only laughs when the troops embrace her: "c'est tout le mal qu'elle sait faire" ["that's as bad as she can be"]. According to Stephen O'Shea, the tune was later adapted to new lyrics about the folly and stupidity of the Nivelle Offensive (April 16-19, 1917; also known as the Chemin des Dames offensive) in which  France lost "perhaps 40,000 men" on the first day of battle. J. M. Winter writes:  

As on the Somme, the [artillery] barrage failed; the defenders held the initial French advance to a mere 500 m (1600 ft). Repeated French attacks were futile and their repetition, inhuman. The French Army lost over 270,000 men and the will to fight this kind of war. (94)

As Winter indicates, the Chemin des Dames offensive sparked widespread mutinies in the French army in 1917. The revised Madelon protests against the pointless loss of life before the village of Craonne:

Adieu la vie, adieu l'amour
Adieu toutes les femmes
C'est bien fini, c'est pour toujours
De cette guerre infâme
C'est à Craonne, sur le plateau
Qu'on doit laisser sa peau,
Car nous sommes tous condamnés
Nous sommes les sacrifiés.                                         (quoted in O'Shea 127)

So long to life, so long to love
So long to all those women;
It's all over, it's done forever,
This shameful war.
At Craonne, on the plateau
That's where we'll leave our skins,
For we've all been sentenced—
We are the sacrificed.

(31) C'est d'la blague . . . les défend. The glossary at the back has neglected to translate this passage. C'est d'la blague means something like "That's clap-trap" or as we would say, "b.s."—however, the expression also implies "nonsense" or a "practical joke." One translation might be: "It's all a bad joke. Do you know, there are no more trains? —The conductor is dead, I know his sister. —I'm screwed, old buddy. —Tell me about it. We're all done for. —What time is it? —My friend, there is no more time, the French government has forbidden it." See pages 36, 86-87, and 256.

(40) The sac full of suspicious letters —Cummings wrote to his mother that after checking his large sack at the station, "I [was] carrying this time merely a small bag of letters, n. books, & souvenirs, which a gendarme had always carried hitherto" (Letters 37).
 

(41) a little wooden man—This is a roadside cross, called a calvaire ("Calvary") in France. In his Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), John Bunyan relates how Christian the pilgrim came to "a place somewhat ascending, and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre where it fell in, and I saw it no more" (41). The "burden" stands for Christian’s guilt and sin, which was lifted from him by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. You might find it interesting to know that Bunyan wrote most of Pilgrim’s Progress in prison.

View of the Dépôt de Triage at La Ferté-Macé. The Enormous  Room was on the top floor of the building at the left.  The building on the right is the "chapel." More views of La Ferté.

(61) "Les pommiers sont pleins de pommes —from a poem titled "Le Verger" ("The Orchard") by Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915). One stanza reads:

Simone, allons au verger
  Avec un panier d'osier.
Nous dirons à nos pommiers,
  En entrant dans le verger:
Voici la saison des pommes.
  Allons au verger, Simone,
     Allons au verger.

Simone, let's go to the orchard
  Carrying a wicker-basket.
We'll say to our apple-trees
  As we enter the orchard:
Apple season is here.
  Let's go to the orchard, Simone,
    Let's go to the orchard.

(98) "Asbestos" = sign on theater curtains notifying the audience that the curtain was at least partially made of asbestos and thus fireproof.

(100) banque = card game similar to baccarat.

(100) mEEt me to-nIght in DREamland, = Song written by Leo Friedman and Beth Slater Whitson for the 1904 opening of Dreamland Park on Coney Island, New York.

Questions, chapters I-V
1. Why do you think Cummings answers as does to the question "Est-ce que vous détestez les boches?" [Do you hate the Germans?] (15)? (See p. 64.)

2. In what ways could Cummings’ journey be characterized as a spiritual one?

3. Why do you think C. makes so many references to dirt, filth, and excrement? (For example, how do you account for his change in attitude towards "Ça Pue" [18-22]?) As you read, try to figure out what Cummings values in filth, ignorance, and child-like behavior.

4. What do you think is C.’s attitude towards the war? Towards the French government? Towards any government or authority? Why do you suppose Cummings does not include anything about the five weeks he and Brown spent in Paris before going to the front?

5. What do you think are some of the meanings of C.’s encounter with "a little wooden man" (41)?

6. Notice how C. introduces us to his first hours in the Enormous Room (47-62). How would you characterize his technique and why do you think he tells this portion of the story in this way?

7. Why do you think C. stresses the "timelessness" (87) of his stay in prison?

8. Why do you think B. and C. are so happy to be in the Enormous Room? (See pp. 49-50.) In what ways are they "lucky" (88)?

9. Compare / contrast Count Bragard's attitudes towards filth, his fellow prisoners, and art (55-57) with C.'s attitudes towards these same topics. Why do you think Cummings makes these contrasts?

10. Why are the prisoners in this jail? Why do you think Cummings "draws" portraits of his fellow-prisoners instead of telling the story from beginning to end? (See p. 86.)

(112) Apollyon = a "foul fiend" who dwells in the Valley of Humiliation, described by Bunyan as a "monster hideous to behold; he was clothed in scales like a fish (and they are his pride); he had wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, and out of his belly came fire and smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion" (57—see Revelation 9:11). Apollyon questions Christian ("Whence come you, and whither are you bound?") and tries his faith. Blocking the road, Apollyon threatens to kill Christian, to "spill [his] soul" (58). They fight, and Christian is wounded in the head, hand, and foot (understanding, faith, and conviction), but in return he gives the dragon "a deadly thrust" and the dreaded beast flies away.

(134) Delectable Mountains = Christian comes upon them after escaping from "Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair" (105). From their tops, the pilgrim can see those who have fallen in error, those who wander forever in error, and the hypocrites burning in hell. He can also see the Celestial City, goal of his pilgrimage. Shepherds named "Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere" (111) live in these mountains.

(134) "Sunday(says Mr. Pound Cummings mis-remembers an Ezra Pound poem. On August 7, 1954, EEC wrote to his German translators:

I supposed "Sunday is a dreadful day" . . . to be lifted from Ezra Pound's immortal parody of the English poet [A. E.] Houseman;but,finding that the original runs

"London is a woeful place,
Shropshire is much pleasanter
Then let us smile a little space
Upon fond nature's morbid grace.
                 Oh,Woe,woe,woe,etcetera . . ."

realize that I parodied my old friend the parodist  (Letters 234)

(158) Count Bragard should have spelt his name, not Bra- but with an l = He should have spelled it "Blagard," i.e., "Blackguard." 

(175) Zoo-Loo —W. Todd Martin points out that Cummings may be punning on the word "Zoo" here: "In an essay entitled 'The Secret of the Zoo Exposed,' Cummings discusses the significance of the animals in the zoo, but he is careful to point out that most misinterpret the word zoo:"

(192) Surplice = "A loose-fitting white gown, having full flowing sleeves, worn over a cassock by some clergymen." The French spelling of the word is "surplis."

(225-26) 'Eats uh lonje wae to Tee-pear-raer-ee' = "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," popular song on the Western Front. Kennedy reports that Cummings and Brown would improvise bawdy verses when singing the song for their French comrades (146).

(228) "L'automne humide et monotone" —like the verse on p. 61, this one is also from a poem by Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915), titled "Chanson de l'automne." (Thanks to Thierry Gillyboeuf for finding this reference.) Here is the first stanza:

Viens, mon amie, viens, c'est l'automne.
L'automne humide et monotone,
Mais les feuilles des cerisiers
Et les fruits mûrs des églantiers
Sont rouges comme des baisers,
Viens, mon amie, viens, c'est l'automne.

Come my love, come, it's autumn.
Monotonous, humid autumn,
But the leaves of the cherry trees
And the ripe berries of the sweet-briar
Are as red as kisses,
Come my love, come, it's autumn.

Viens, mon amie, viens, c'est l'automne,
Tout nus les peupliers frissonnent,
Mais leur feuillage n'est pas mort;
Gonflant sa robe couleur d'or,
Il danse, il danse, il danse encor,
Viens, mon amie, viens, c'est l'automne.

Come my love, come, it's autumn.
Quite naked, the poplars tremble,
But their leaves are not dead yet;
Filling his garment with gold,
He dances, dances, dances still,
Come my love, come, it's autumn. 

(233) The Great Mister Harold Bell Wright = Harold Bell Wright (1872-1944), whose novels sold more copies than any other American writer in the first quarter of the twentieth century (Chudleigh). He is best known for The  Shepherd of the Hills (1907) and The Winning of Barbara Worth (1911). Wright's New York Times obituary noted that even though he was scorned by critics "as a purveyor of sweetness and light, . . . he insisted that he was essentially not a novelist but a preacher, and his proudest boast was that all his books were wholesome and clean, the kind that anybody's sister could read."

(233) Pollyanna = children's novel by Eleanor H. Porter (1868-1920), published in 1913.

(273) "FOR THIS MY SON . . ." Cummings' father, the Unitarian minister, quotes a verse from the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:24). 

12. What similarities and differences do you see between Bunyan’s episode of Apollyon (described in the notes above) and Cummings’ description of the Directeur?

13. What do you think Cummings means when he says that watching Lena’s punishment taught him "the meaning of civilization" (127)?

14. In what ways can you relate Celina's cry at the le Directeur to "CHIEZ, SI VOUS VOULEZ, CHIEZ" (129) to the other mentions of excrement and filth in the book?

15. Why do you think the three men called "the Delectable Mountains" and Jean le Nègre are so important to Cummings? Why do you think the articulate C. is so drawn to these inarticulate and child-like men?

16. Do you find Cummings’ description of Jean le Nègre stereotypical, sentimental, or even racist? How do you think Cummings would respond to such a charge? (For a discussion of these issues, see Mott's "The Cummings Line on Race.")

17. In his 1934 introduction to the book, Cummings said "Thanks to . . . my art I am able to become myself." In what ways could characters like the Delectable Mountains, Jean le Nègre, the Machine Fixer, Lena, and Celina be described as artists?

18. What do you think Cummings learns about art in the Enormous Room? (See pp. 232-233.) What are some of the functions of the "primitive" in the books and movements we have studied this semester?

19. What do you think C. discovers about himself on this journey? (See pp. 247-248.)

        Don’t be afraid.
        —But I’ve never seen a picture you painted or read a word you wrote—
        So what?
        So you’re thirty-eight?
        Correct.
        And have only just finished your second novel?
        Socalled.
        Entitled ee-eye-em-eye? [Eimi]
        Right.
        And pronounced?
        "A" as in a, "me" as in me; accent on the "me".
        Signifying?
        Am.
        How does Am compare with The Enormous Room?
        Favorably.
        They’re not at all similar, are they?
        When The Enormous Room was published, some people wanted a war book; they were disappointed. When Eimi was published, some people wanted Another Enormous Room; they were disappointed.
        Doesn’t The Enormous Room really concern war?
        It actually uses war: to explore an inconceivable vastness which is so unbelievably far away that it appears microscopic.
        When you wrote this book, you were looking through war at something very big and very far away? [end p. vii]
        When this book wrote itself, I was observing a negligible portion of something incredibly more distant than any sun; something more unimaginably huge than the most prodigious of all universes—
        Namely?
        The individual.
        Well! And what about Am?
        Some people had decided that The Enormous Room wasn’t a just-war book and was a class-war book, when along
        came Eimi—aha! said some people; here’s another dirty dig at capitalism.
        And they were disappointed.
        Sic.
        Do you think these disappointed people really hated capitalism?
        I feel these disappointed people unreally hated themselves—
        And you really hated Russia.
        Russia, I felt, was more deadly than war; when nationalists hate, they hate by merely killing and maiming human beings; when Internationalists hate, they hate by categorying and pigeonholing human beings.
        So both your novels were what people didn’t expect. Eimi is the individual again; a more complex individual, a more enormous room.
        By a —what do you call yourself? painter? poet? playwright? satirist? essayist? novelist?
        Artist.
        But not a successful artist, in the popular sense?
        Don’t be silly.
        Yet you probably consider your art of vital consequence—
        Improbably.
        —To the world? [end p. viii]
        To myself.
        What about the world, Mr. Cummings?
        I live in so many: which one do you mean?
        I mean the everyday humdrum world, which includes me and you and millions upon millions of men and women.
        So?
        Did it ever occur to you that people in this socalled world of ours are not interested in art?
        Da da.
        Isn’t that too bad!
        How?
        If people were interested in art, you as an artist would receive wider recognition— Wider?
        Of course.
        Not deeper.
        Deeper?
        Love, for example, is deeper than flattery.
        Ah—but (now that you mention it) isn’t love just a trifle oldfashioned?
        I dare say.
        And aren’t you supposed to be ultramodernistic?
        I dare say.
        But I dare say you don’t dare say precisely why you consider your art of vital consequence—
        Thanks to I dare say my art I am able to become myself.
        Well well! Doesn’t that sound as if people who weren't artists couldn’t become themselves?
        Does it?
        What do you think happens to people who aren’t artists? What do you think people who aren’t artists become?
            [end p. ix]
        I feel they don’t become: I feel nothing happens to them; I feel negation becomes of them.
        Negation?
        You paraphrased it a few moments ago.
        How?
        "This socalled world of ours."
        Labouring under the childish delusion that economic forces don’t exist, eh?
        I am labouring.
        Answer one question: do economic forces exist or do they not?
        Do you believe in ghosts?
        I said economic forces.
        So what?
        Well well well! ‘Where ignorance is bliss. .. Listen, Mr. Lowercase Highbrow—
        Shoot.
        —I’m afraid you’ve never been hungry.
        Don’t be afraid.

NEW YORK 1933                                                                                                  E. E. CUMMINGS

[end p. x]

While it may be a good thing to have The Enormous Room more widely available through the Penguin 1999 edition, it is a shame that Samuel Hynes used the Modern Library 1934 text. His "Note on the Text" is a bit sly. He begins: "Three principal editions of The Enormous Room were published during Cummings’s lifetime" and then goes on to indicate that of these three, "the Modern Library edition is clearly preferable." It may well be the best of the three but this particular game is rigged. If one limits the choice to those published in Cummings’s lifetime, one must ignore the latter magnificent work of George Firmage and the far superior Liveright edition. I realize that Penguin couldn’t publish the Firmage text of a competing publisher; I suppose it is unrealistic to ask Hynes to mention this other, competing text. Hynes certainly could not make an argument that the Modern Library text is better. Firmage’s "Afterword" in the Liveright edition clearly supports the superiority of his text over the other three including the Modern Library edition. So Hynes does have a major problem. I don’t think his introduction or glossary compensate at all for the inferior text he uses. The Firmage / Liveright edition is simply more "Cummingsesque." While I am pleased that the Penguin people think there are enough readers out there to make it worth their while again to publish The Enormous Room, still I would like to put a little sticker on all copies of their edition saying, "Buy the best; buy Liveright!"

Order from Amazon.com
or from W. W. Norton (distributor of the Liveright edition)

More views of La Ferté

Cummings' drawings of people in The Enormous Room

Literary Ambulance Drivers in WW I

E. E. Cummings and Paris

Enormous Room page (Liveright Edition)

W. W. Norton Enormous Room page

EEC Notes page

People, Places, and Publications page

Chronology

Bibliography / Works Cited page

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