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I sing of Olaf


"i sing of Olaf" (sometimes referred to as "i sing of Olaf glad and big") is a poem by E.E. Cummings. It first appeared in Cummings' 1931 collection ViVa. It depicts the life of Olaf, a conscientious objector and pacifist during the First World War who is tortured by the United States Army but nonetheless "will not kiss your fucking flag", and subsequently dies in prison.

History

The poem is based on the true story of a "big blond conscientious objector who was reading Sir Thomas Browne",[1] whom Cummings briefly encountered while stationed at Camp Devens in 1918;[2] Susan Cheever noted that Cummings never learned the man's name, and only "vividly imagined his fate".[1]

Analysis

Harold Bloom noted the similarity of the opening stanza to that of Virgil's Aeneid, and stated that as a "true pacifist" rather than a "grandstanding rebel with a cause", Olaf was "more closely akin to Melville's 'Bartleby' than fellow conscientious objector Mohammed Ali".[3]

Literary scholar Gary Lane observed that the poem's "laconic conclusion" prefigures W. H. Auden's "The Unknown Citizen"[4] and contrasted Olaf (whose heroic values are based in peace) to Achilles (whose heroic values are based in war).[4][5] Macha Rosenthal stated that he "learned more about the abuse of power from 'i sing of Olaf' than [he] had imagined possible."[6]

Censorship

Although the poem's original publication contained the word "fucking", anthologies typically bowdlerized this to "f.ing";[7] similarly, Olaf's statement that "there is some shit i will not eat" is typically rendered as "there is some s. i will not eat".[8]

Homages

"i sing of Olaf" was the inspiration for Marco Stroppa's 2005 piece "I will not kiss your fucking flag".[9]

References

  1. ^ a b "E. E. Cummings, A Life", by Susan Cheever; page 64; published 2014 by Pantheon Books
  2. ^ Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, page 164-165, by Catherine Tramonta, edited by Eric L. Haralson; published 2014 by Routledge
  3. ^ Critical Analysis of 'i sing of olaf glad and big', in "Bloom's Major Poets: E. E. Cummings", p. 46-47; edited by Harold Bloom, published 2009 by Infobase Publishing
  4. ^ a b "So Many Selves" (chapter 3) (p 38-41), I Am: A Study of E. E. Cummings' Poems, by Gary Lane; published 1976 by University Press of Kansas
  5. ^ GARY LANE ON THE REVERSAL OF CLASSICAL EXPECTATION, by Gary Lane, excerpted in "Bloom's Major Poets: E. E. Cummings", edited by Harold Bloom, published 2009 by Infobase Publishing; "We learn not 'the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus / and its destruction' (...), but the gentleness of Olaf (...) The form does not undercut heroism — we do not deal here with mock epic — it instead offers alternative heroic values. In the Iliad, Achilles is a hero of physical strength, sulking like a child when Briseis is taken from him, but at last achieving immortality by slaughtering Trojans. Olaf's strength is moral. Scarcely annoyed as his self-righteous and sadistic torturers attempt to strip him of human dignity, he achieves epic stature by refusing to kill."
  6. ^ "e. e. c. (= élan et courage)", by M. L. Rosenthal; in Spring, the Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society; New Series, No. 3, Centennial Issue (October 1994), pp. 21-29 (9 pages)
  7. ^ A Frieze for a Temple of Love, by Edward Field, published 1998 by David R. Godine, Publisher
  8. ^ E. E. Cummings, a biography, by Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno; published 2004 by Sourcebooks
  9. ^ Seen and Heard Festival Report: Wittener Tage fuer Neue Kammermusik, reviewed by John Warnaby, 2005; at MusicWeb International; retrieved September 2, 2018

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