For those of you who are not already familiar with E. E. Cummings’ great masterpiece The Enormous Room, I will give you the basics:
After America entered World War I on the side of the Allies (Great Britain and France) against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, our Mr. Cummings registered himself as a conscientious objector and asked to serve in his country and the war effort in some capicity that wouldn’t involve typical military service. To this end, he was allowed to serve as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross (referred to in the book as Section Sanitaire 21) in France. Apparently, French censors got hold of some letters written by Cummings’ friend and co-worker in the ambulance corps, William Slater Brown (referred to in the book as B. or my friend B.), which they felt were somehow against the war or the war effort. For that reason, they ordered both Brown and his co-worker Cummings to be arrested and questioned. Even though Cummings himself had not written anything which the censors objected to, nor had he been involved in any suspicious activities, they decided to have him detained with Brown on suspicion of espionage or other anti-war activities, mainly because he refused to be disloyal to his friend and would not be bullied by his interrogators into changing his opinion that Brown was innocent (and neither anti-French nor pro-German).
Brown and Cummings were eventually sent to La Ferté Macé in the Normandy region of France, which was technically not a prison, but rather a detention center where suspects were held before they could be further examined. Those who were determined to be guilty, were then sent to a real prison (Précigné) which is where Brown was eventually sent. Cummings’ father had the U.S. government put diplomatic pressure on the French officials to release Cummings, which they eventually did, but not after Cummings served more than three months at the detention center where most of the male inmates lived and slept in an enormous room whereby his book receives its title. The book recounts Cummings’ experiences at La Ferté Macé with his fellow inmates as well as with the guards and prison officials; much of this recounted with utmost humor and sarcasm, and with a flowery language only befitting one who would later become one of America’s greatest (if not most unique) poets.
For this book, Cummings draws on imagery from the famous book The Pilgrim’s Progress from which he finds inspiration in his concept of the delectable mountains. This seems fitting considering that Cummings was from Massachussets (orginally founded by English Puritans like the writer of Pilgrim’s Progress) and his father was a Unitarian minister (Unitarianism having New England roots which relate to the Congregational Churches that evolved from the original Puritan settlers – commonly referred to by many Americans as “pilgrims”).
It is my aim in this glossary to aid the confused reader who like yours truly might find himself pulling his hair out trying to make sense of the many and varied nicknames which Cummings liked to use to describe the book’s most important characters. This glossary also includes other terms which might help the reader to make more sense of what he reads. I will say at the outset that some characters have been omitted from the glossary; but these are mostly characters who I considered to be of little or no importance, including ones who were only mentioned once in the book and who were devoid of the varied and confusing nicknames which plagued most of the other characters.
I sincerely hope that you, the reader, will find this book to be helpful in some way; and if you do, please recommend it to a friend.
Best wishes,
Dave Luton
Valencia, Spain
After America entered World War I on the side of the Allies (Great Britain and France) against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, our Mr. Cummings registered himself as a conscientious objector and asked to serve in his country and the war effort in some capicity that wouldn’t involve typical military service. To this end, he was allowed to serve as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross (referred to in the book as Section Sanitaire 21) in France. Apparently, French censors got hold of some letters written by Cummings’ friend and co-worker in the ambulance corps, William Slater Brown (referred to in the book as B. or my friend B.), which they felt were somehow against the war or the war effort. For that reason, they ordered both Brown and his co-worker Cummings to be arrested and questioned. Even though Cummings himself had not written anything which the censors objected to, nor had he been involved in any suspicious activities, they decided to have him detained with Brown on suspicion of espionage or other anti-war activities, mainly because he refused to be disloyal to his friend and would not be bullied by his interrogators into changing his opinion that Brown was innocent (and neither anti-French nor pro-German).
Brown and Cummings were eventually sent to La Ferté Macé in the Normandy region of France, which was technically not a prison, but rather a detention center where suspects were held before they could be further examined. Those who were determined to be guilty, were then sent to a real prison (Précigné) which is where Brown was eventually sent. Cummings’ father had the U.S. government put diplomatic pressure on the French officials to release Cummings, which they eventually did, but not after Cummings served more than three months at the detention center where most of the male inmates lived and slept in an enormous room whereby his book receives its title. The book recounts Cummings’ experiences at La Ferté Macé with his fellow inmates as well as with the guards and prison officials; much of this recounted with utmost humor and sarcasm, and with a flowery language only befitting one who would later become one of America’s greatest (if not most unique) poets.
For this book, Cummings draws on imagery from the famous book The Pilgrim’s Progress from which he finds inspiration in his concept of the delectable mountains. This seems fitting considering that Cummings was from Massachussets (orginally founded by English Puritans like the writer of Pilgrim’s Progress) and his father was a Unitarian minister (Unitarianism having New England roots which relate to the Congregational Churches that evolved from the original Puritan settlers – commonly referred to by many Americans as “pilgrims”).
It is my aim in this glossary to aid the confused reader who like yours truly might find himself pulling his hair out trying to make sense of the many and varied nicknames which Cummings liked to use to describe the book’s most important characters. This glossary also includes other terms which might help the reader to make more sense of what he reads. I will say at the outset that some characters have been omitted from the glossary; but these are mostly characters who I considered to be of little or no importance, including ones who were only mentioned once in the book and who were devoid of the varied and confusing nicknames which plagued most of the other characters.
I sincerely hope that you, the reader, will find this book to be helpful in some way; and if you do, please recommend it to a friend.
Best wishes,
Dave Luton
Valencia, Spain
