America the ridiculous?

  E.E. Cummings' "next to of course god America i" utilizes enjambment, an interesting play on words and form, and allusions to historical, American symbols to mock American patriotism, painting it as ridiculous and unintelligent quality to possess.

Upon first read, Cummings' poem is difficult to piece together. Lack of punctuation and capitalization throughout the poem portray the speaker as unintelligent and lazy, thus creating a similar tone. Further, Cummings plays with the Shakespearean sonnet format. The first two quatrains follow the format perfectly; however, the first line of the ending couplet is sandwiched in the middle of the third quatrain, and the couplet's second line is far separated from the rest of the poem. Considering the poem appears to be a dictation of a man's ridiculous declaration of his patriotism, this play with form seems to further emphasize the jumbled tone created by the excessive enjambment and lack of punctuation. Consequently, the sonnet reads less seriously than what would normally be expected. It is as though the person recording the man's declaration is mocking him by not giving him the benefit of the doubt that is correctly punctuating his testament.

Continuing to support this mockery are allusions to historical American symbols. A great example of this is when the speaker says, "love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country 'tis of" (2-4). "land of the pilgrims'" alludes to the early North American settlers who traveled to American from Europe, something many Americans are proud of and celebrate during Thanksgiving. However, following such a sentiment with "and so forth" seems to push aside its significance in a rush to move on to more important things. "oh say can you see by the dawn's early" alludes to America's national anthem, the "star Spangled Banner," and "my country 'tis of" alludes to the famous patriotic song, "America." All of these things are important symbols of American nationalism that are quickly mentioned and passed up in the jumble of the sonnet. Further, when the speaker says, "in every languagE. E.evn deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gory by jingo by gee by gosh by gum" (6-8), he's making a mocking exaggeration of varying phrases used as exclamations, helping to paint an image of a frazzled man, almost goofy, rambling on. This creates a sense that these things are pretty silly, ridiculous even.