E. E. Cummings, “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in”

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
당신의 마음을 제가 가지고 다녀요(가슴 속에
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere 
당신의 마음을 품고 다녀요)나는 당신의 마음 없이는 다니지 않아요(어디든
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
내가 가는 곳에 당신도 가요, 내 사랑이여, 그리고 뭘 하든
by only me is your doing,my darling)
혼자 하는 것은 당신이 하는 것이에요)
                                                      i fear
                                                      I fear을 따로 빼어놓았는데, 이게 없으면 sonnet
나는 운명을
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
두려워하지 않아요 (당신이 내 운명이니까요, 내 사랑이여) 나는
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
세상이 필요하지 않아요(아름다운 당신이 내 세상이니까요, 사랑하는 이여)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
달이 의미해온 것은 무엇이든 당신이었고
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
해가 늘 노래 부르는 것이 무엇이든 당신이에요)

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
여기에 누구도 모르는 깊은 비밀이 있는데
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
(여기엔 생명이라 불리는 나무 뿌리의 뿌리, 싹의 싹과
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
하늘의 하늘이 있고 이 나무는 자라요
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
영혼이 희망하는 것보다 또는 마음이 숨길 수 있는 것보다 높게 자라요
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
그리고 이 경이로움이 별들을 떨어져있게 만들어요.

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
나는 당신의 마음을 가지고 다녀요(가슴 속에 당신의 마음을 품고 다녀요)

Love and Connection

나-너 -> 분리된 존재
we가 됐을 때 이러한 관계가 사라질 수 있는지

● The speaker describes a romantic relationship so strong and intimate that it transcends individuality, effectively uniting the speaker and the subject of the poem as one. In the world of the poem love leads to a sense of unity.

● The speaker makes it clear early on that this poem is about the kind of romantic devotion that inspires people to stop seeing themselves as totally separate from their partners. To that end, the first line suggests that the speaker carries the lover’s heart inside of the speaker’s own heart. This image underscores the extent to which the speaker has embraced the lover, incorporating the lover into the very organ that keeps the speaker alive. The lover is portrayed as integral to the speaker’s entire being.

● To further solidify the idea that the lover is intertwined with the speaker’s existence, the speaker upholds that the lover informs everything the speaker does, since the two of them have become one—after all, “whatever is done” by the speaker is the lover’s “doing.” In sum, the speaker’s love for the subject not only refigures the speaker’s sense of self, but also influences the way the speaker moves through the world.

● With this in mind, love also affects the way the speaker conceives of the surrounding environment and the natural world. Even the moon becomes an embodiment of the lover’s effect on the speaker. This is because the lover is the speaker’s entire “world,” and this ultimately helps the speaker make sense of things that have previously seemed inscrutable. The speaker doesn’t know what a “moon has always meant” but now feels as if it conveys the feeling of being in love.  The speaker’s relationship with the lover has given meaning to otherwise meaningless parts of everyday life, including natural elements like the moon and, for that matter, the sun. Accordingly, the poem presents loves itself as a powerful thing capable of lending a person’s entire life a sense of beautiful harmony.

Symbols

● The Heart: The heart is a very straightforward symbol. However, the speaker adds a bit of complexity to this otherwise clichéd symbolism by presenting readers with the image of one heart existing inside another. This image gives rise to the idea of unity, inseparability, and even possession, as the lover has literally become part of the speaker. In fact, the lover apparently exists inside what is arguably the most important organ in the speaker’s body. In turn, the lover is integral to the speaker’s survival. Accordingly, readers come to see love itself as a life force, something capable of keeping people alive.

● The Natural World: Elements of the natural world appear as external embodiments of the speaker’s romantic feelings. In the wake of the speaker’s feelings for the lover the speaker has a new perspective on the moon and the sun as a result of this romantic relationship. In lines 11 through 14 (“here is the root … the stars apart”), the speaker reminds readers of the kinds of connection and growth that exist in nature, calling attention to the ways in which trees grow from the ground and into the sky. A similar kind of connection governs romantic love, implying that the lover’s heart exists inside the speaker’s and that this love expands outward, causing the speaker to see the world anew. Consequently, the natural world represents the idea of unity and the extent to which love as changed the speaker’s general way of moving through life.

Alliteration

● Alliteration quickly moves from one repetition to another. Lines 5 through 8 rotate through several alliterative sounds by starting with an /f/, moving to a /w/, and then transitioning to an /m/ sound:

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

The words “fear,” “fate,” “for,” and “fate” are obviously alliterative, as are the words "want, “world,” and “whatever.” Lastly, the words “moon” and “meant” are alliterative.

● More interestingly, the /m/ sound is repeated throughout the entire passage, since there are so many instances of the word “my” that appear before the /m/ sound truly jumps out in the phrase “whatever a moon has always meant.” In this regard, readers are prepared to subtly catch the alliterative /m/ sound when it finally appears in full force. As a result, it becomes clear that the poem’s use of alliteration isn’t as separated out as it might seem at first, but actually intertwined within itself.

Alliteration

● Readers may sense that the rich and connective sound that alliteration creates is essential to the poem, especially since these repeated sounds give the words a musicality that reflects the speaker’s doting and amorous tone. Moreover, the feeling of connectivity that alliteration builds also underscores the poem’s celebration of love and its ability to join two people together so cohesively.

Where alliteration appears in the poem:

●Line 3: “go,” “go,” “dear,” “done”                       Line 4: “doing,” “darling”

●Line 5: “fear”                                                        Line 6: “fate,” “for,” “fate,” “want”

●Line 7: “world,” “world”                                      Line 8: “whatever,” “moon,” “meant”

●Line 9: “whatever,” “sun,” “sing”                        Line 10: “nobody,” “knows”

●Line 11: “root,” “root,” “bud,” “bud”                   Line 12: “sky,” “sky”

●Line 13: “higher,” “soul,” “hope,” “hide”            Line 14: “stars”

Form

14행인듯 하나 아님
● Although it is certainly not a perfect sonnet, the poem gestures toward certain structural conventions that are typically associated with the sonnet form. The poem has 15 lines instead of 14, which would suggest that it isn’t a sonnet. However, line 5 is only two words long (“i fear”) and is heavily indented, inviting readers to question whether it should be counted as its own line.

● This two-word line also divides the first part of the poem into two groups of four lines. If the short line “i fear” is ignored, the first half of the poem aligns with the form of an Italian sonnet. However, the line “i fear” is there, effectively complicating the form and indicating that, though the poem is similar to an Italian sonnet, it has its own unique structure.

● In keeping with this, lines 10 through 15 (“here is the … in my heart”) almost functions as a final sestet, except for the fact that the final line is presented as its own stanza. If the last line didn’t appear after a stanza break, then the poem would end with the kind of six-line sestet that typically characterizes the standard Italian sonnet.

● Similarly, it’s worth noting that the final two lines rhyme with each other (“apart” and “heart”). This is a typical thing that appears in Elizabethan sonnets.

● The poem emulates another sonnet form without fully adhering to the rules. It might suggest that this unwieldy approach to structure represents the fact that the speaker and the lover’s romance is uncontainable.

Meter

Alliteration으로 형식이 있는 느낌
비록 자유시라 하더라도
● “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in” is written in free verse, which means that it doesn’t have a consistent meter.

● However, it’s worth pointing out that many of its lines have the same number of syllables. For instance, the first three lines (“i carry your … whatever is done”) all contain 12 syllables, and the next line contains 11. Every line in the poem hovers around 11 or 12 syllables, lending a sense of uniformity to a poem.

● This, however, does not mean that any kind of set meter runs from line to line. The lack of meter keeps the poem feeling vibrant and unpredictable, totally unrestrained like the speaker’s love itself.

● Given that the poem plays with the conventional sonnet form, it’s particularly notable that it is written in free verse. Since sonnets are traditionally composed in iambic pentameter, the poem’s lack of meter is another manner in which it deviates from convention and breaks the traditional concept of what counts as a sonnet.

Rhyme Scheme

Shakespearean Rhyme & patrarchan rhyme
● The poem doesn’t have an overall set rhyme scheme, but this is not to say that it doesn’t make use of rhyme in some way. The most obvious rhymes appear toward the end of the poem. The last two stanzas, for instance, do have the following rhyme scheme: ABACD D Or:

A … Knows

B … Bud

A … Grows

C … hide)

D … apart

D … heart)

This pattern mimics the rhyme scheme often found in Elizabethan sonnets, which conclude with a final quatrain followed by a rhyming couplet. In these sonnets, every other line of the final quatrain rhymes, too, making the final rhyme scheme ABAB CC.

● Though, only lines 10 and 12 rhyme perfectly (“knows” and “grows”). In lines 11 and 13, “bud” and “hide” don’t rhyme but do share the same final consonance on the /d/ sound, lending them a similarity.

● Overall, lines 10 through 15 (“here is the … in my heart”) offer up a feeling of conclusion and cohesion that the rest of the poem lacks. The poem comes to an end with a feeling of connection and unity that reflects its thematic conception of love.

Literary Context

● As a love poem, “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in” belongs to a long tradition of poetry addressed to romantic partners. Such poems speak to an unidentified lover using a celebratory and admiring tone, as is the case in famous poems like Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How do I Love thee? Let me count the ways,” Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 18,” Percy Bysshe Shelley’s "Love’s Philosophy,” Lord Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty,” Robert Burns’s “A Red, Red Rose”. Like “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in,” many of the previously mentioned poems use naturalistic imagery as a way of expressing what it feels like to be in love.

● This attention to love and nature aligns Cummings with the major themes of the Romantic movement, which is perhaps why many of his poems are roughly based on the sonnet form—after all, some of the most famous poems of the Romantic era were sonnets.

● However, Cummings was also interested in experimenting with poetic structure. “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in” takes the traditional form of a sonnet and pushes it into free verse by changing the number of lines and avoiding any kind of fixed meter and rhyme scheme.

● As an innovative poet in the mid-1900s, he helped modernism shift toward the more free-flowing, open minded formal experimentation that eventually defined postmodernism in the latter half of the century.

Historical Context

● “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in” was first published in 1952 in a volume of poetry by E. E. Cummings entitled Complete Poems: 1904–1962.

● Cummings was one of the most important poets of the modern era, since his idiosyncratic use of grammar, syntax, and form ultimately guided the overall trajectory in poetry toward free verse and experimentation.

● Cummings was a young man during World War I and enlisted in the military in 1917. He spent his war years inh soldiers. He was eventually taken as a prisoner in France, where he was detained for nearly four months before being released. He then returned to the United States in 1918 but was drafted into the Army shortly thereafter.

● These wartime experiences served as a precursor to Cummings’s work as a professional author, since his first book didn’t come out until 1922. This, however, is not to say that his brief time as a soldier profoundly affected his writing. Although these experiences most likely worked their way into his writing in some regard, he is not known as a war poet.