I have not consulted any critical sources for E.E. Cummings, so if this ends up as a part of my exams I will need to do more work with this poet. This is a brief note or two from the five poems I looked at.
1) All in green went my love riding-- Early poem/ may be allusion to the Knight's Tale by Chaucer or refers to or retells story of Diana or Artemis/ Actaeon observes Diana bathing, and because of this Diana turns him into a stag and he is eaten by his own dogs... the myth really takes a fearful attitude to the corrupting power of female beauty.
2) O Sweet spontaneous--describes the rape of the earth, but allows that spring returns anyway.
3) The Cambridge Ladies Who Live in Furnished Souls-- this is a form of the sonnet, not as experimental in form as other works by Cummings. Seems to suggest a dead sort of religion/ an interpretation that limits one's direct experience or the real, actual physical reality/ an anit-Tao...
4) I was Sitting in McSoreley's-- poem uses strange, experimental syntax and punctuation. Shows Cumming's "manunkind" concept, lack of harmony between the organic world and human society. Maybe written to simulate 'sloppy' way the brain processes language when intoxicated.
5) A Man Who Had Fallen Among Thieves-- There is an obvious comparison to the story of the Good Samaritan. May be a comparison to "manunkind" who ignores-- contrasted with speaker in the poem who picks up the 'puke covered wretch'....
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