i: six nonlectures

First published by Harvard University Press in 1953 and never out of print, i: six nonlectures are the six Charles Eliot Norton "lectures" which Cummings delivered in the Sanders Theatre at Harvard University in 1952-1953. As the title indicates, the the book is about Cummings' lowercase "i" --his self. In the first three nonlectures, Cummings talks about the influences that formed that self--his family, his early life in Cambridge, MA, his reading, and his encounters with notable places: Norton's Woods, New York City, and Paris. He ends each nonlecture with readings from his own and others' poems. The last three nonlectures are devoted to Cummings' writings--his poems, plays (Him and Santa Claus), and prose works (The Enormous Room and Eimi). Written in the poet's idiosyncratic style, these nonlectures are amusing, entertaining, and enlightening, telling you more about the Cummings world-view than any of his other books. 

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Notes for E. E. Cummings' i: six nonlectures [1953]

(8) my father: Cummings' father, Edward Cummings, was a sociology professor and later a Unitarian minister. When he was in his teens and twenties, the poet rebelled against his father, but later saw him as a hero of the self (see Kennedy, Dreams 100-104; 161-163; 205-206; 385-386 and Kennedy, Revisited 111).

(9) William James: Pragmatist philosopher, early psychologist, and brother of novelist Henry James.

(9) concentration camp: During World War I, Cummings was jailed for supporting his friend Slater Brown, who wrote letters home saying that the Germans were probably not such bad folks after all. Cummings’ book about this experience is called The Enormous Room.

(11) nothing false and possible is love: first stanza of a sonnet by Cummings (CP 574). The next line of the poem reads: "must’s a schoolroom in the month of may:"
Josiah Royce
(25) professor Royce: Josiah Royce, professor of philosophy at Harvard, colleague of James. See note to "curtains part" (CP 230). Photo of Josiah Royce at right.

(48) Howard Street . . . Scollay Square Howard St. was in Scollay Square, Boston, site of the Old Howard Theatre, a burlesque house. Long since demolished by "illustrious punks of Progress" (CP 438), Scollay Square and the Old Howard were for years "famous for supplementing the curricula of Harvard students. 'Always Something Doing, One to Eleven, at the Old Howard' read its ads in the Boston Globe, followed by the titillating phrase, '25 Beautiful Girls 25'" (Park). See also the web page "A brief, pictorial history of Scollay Square."

(48) Bernhardt = Sarah Bernhardt, French actress, born Rosine Bernhard (1844-1923).
Pavlova = Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), Russian ballet dancer. 
Polaire = Emilie-Marie Bouchard (1879-1939), French actress and cafe-concert singer. Another site on Polaire.  

(50) lugete, o Veneres: Catullus, poem 3, "O Venus and her cupids / and all that's moved by beauty in man, mourn / for my sweetheart's sparrow is dead." See the note to the poem "o pr" (CP 392).

(51) labuntur anni: Horace, Odes II.14, Ah, Postumus, Postumus, how fleeting / "the swift years--prayer cannot delay / the furrows of imminent old-age / nor hold off unconquerable death." poikilothron' athanat' Aphrodita: Sappho, the poem often called "Hymn to Aphrodite": "On the throne of many hues, deathless Aphrodite" (Rayor 51).
that glorious human being: poet John Keats. Cummings quotes from Keats' letter to Benjamin Bailey, November 22, 1817.

(54) whose any mystery . . . Cummings quotes here from lines 7-8 of his sonnet "you shall above all things be glad and young" (CP 484).

(68) 144 should read "1944."

(79) I drew a picture of it —visible on the covers of the 1927 and 1955 editions of Him and reproduced on our Him page. Cummings also recorded this "artist-as-acrobat" scene on his first album, E. E. Cummings Reading His Poetry (1953), now called Essential E. E. Cummings (click on "Audio Excerpt").  His nonlecture commentary on the scene was reprinted in the liner notes to the original LP. 

(111) believing and thinking automation should read "believing and thinking automaton."

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