On the surface, “O sweet spontaneous” seems to be a light, airy, and simple poem about the admiration humans have for the multiple facets of the earth. Yet e.e. cummings is claiming something more complex as one reads beneath the poem’s layers. There is a mysterious relationship between humanity and nature regarding the value each places upon the other and the motivations behind their actions. Humanity’s approaches to understanding life: philosophy, science, and religion, engage with the earth in differing ways, however they each do so to achieve an answer to the same question: What is the meaning of life? In an attempt to answer this question, humans continue to both admire and violate the earth in ways unfathomable, only to be given the same constant, yet missed, response. Sexual advances from philosophy, manipulating arrogance from science, violent attacks from religion, and the blatant response from the earth, form the basis of “O sweet spontaneous”. Through these shrewd metaphors, e.e. cummings takes this basic understanding of life and complicates it by accentuating the abusive relationship between human nature and nature itself.
By analyzing a segment of the first two stanzas within “O sweet spontaneous,” we begin to dig deep into the aspects of the human/nature relationship. What is the meaning of life? At first e.e cummings introduces us to philosophy and the manner by which they search for the answer to this question: “doting / fingers of / prurient philosophers” (4-6). Here, the uncritical and extreme fondness humans have of the earth is outlined, but rather on a more unsettling level. What is interesting is cummings’ use of the word “philosophers” instead of “philosophy,” which denotes a personal aspect within the human/nature relationship, and being paired with the word “prurient” assumes a rather sexual foundation between the two. Furthermore the collection of words “fingers” and “pinched and poked,” illustrates to the observer the basis of their relationship. It is one that disregards the feelings of the other. The pinching and poking in the poem mirrors the action of someone with a lack of understanding for something else; it is an action that is innocent, but done with the sole purpose of initiating some sort of reaction. In this case, philosophy is searching for life’s meaning, using a close and personal exploration of the earth with the hopes of eliciting a response.
While philosophy uses the means of exploration to elicit a response from earth and moreover understand life, science takes an arrogant stance on the whole ordeal, claiming to already know about life and just needing to use the earth to confirm it. As imagined in the poem: “the naughty thumb” (10). The word “thumb” from this section of the poem could have two interpretations, both relevant to the analysis of the poem as a whole. One, the “thumb” could refer to the phrase “a green thumb” which defines an individual with exceptional skill and knowledge of nature or more specifically the growth of plants. By taking this concept and applying it to the poem and e.e. cummings’ illustrated perspective of science, a sense of arrogance emerges. When one claims to have a vast depth of knowledge of a particular area, it often becomes quite hard to tell them otherwise. The second interpretation occurs in the phrase “under someone’s thumb” which alludes to being controlled or manipulated by another, usually without will or interference of the controlled. Looking closer at the rest of the stanza, “science prodded / thy / beauty,” (11-13) we see how science demands control of nature, using it to its own advantage and ultimately treating the earth in a manner only beneficial to science. The earth is meant to be a thing of beauty and is meant to house, feed, and entertain the humans on it, not the other way around. In the eyes of science, the earth is but an experimental ground for which to confirm the already known meaning of life.
In opposition to science, religion seeks to define its own meaning of life by using violent actions of validation:
. how
often have religions taken thee upon their scraggy knees squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive gods (13-18)
The action described here refers to the instances where brothers and sisters of Catholic schools would take any misbehaving or sinful child, have them bend over their laps, and literally beat the word of God into them. Relating back to the poem, religion has taken this rather violent approach to understanding life by “buffeting” earth and forcing God out of it. The purpose of religion forcing God out of the earth has to do with how flimsy religion is and how its attempt to understand life is formed on the basis of faith rather than fact. In essence, religion is searching for something that may or may not exist and is forcing upon the world a morality that they wish upon all of humanity to strive for. But regardless of this, they are taking perhaps the most immoral route to finding God, to understanding life, leaving the earth to suffer in the end.
Humanity’s three approaches to understanding life continuously unleash demeaning actions on the earth, but unfortunately never get the answer they seek. This results is a cyclical power struggle between humanity and nature, where nature names the “couch of death [earth’s] / rhythmic / lover,” (22-24). In this passage, cummings illustrates for the reader the problems with humanity’s methods to understanding life – the reasons why a response is never received. The means by which philosophy, science, and religion seek their answers are all too ill focused and threatening. It is unrealistic to expect a good reaction from a bad action. It is unrealistic to find the meaning of life while focused on death. What is the meaning of life? While all three of these approaches to understanding life differ by the means in which they attempt for the same clarity, they also fail to overlook the same thing. Unbeknownst to humanity, nature has been responding to these actions: in summer, life flourishes; in autumn, life prepares to halt; in winter, life ends; and in spring, life is reborn. Unbeknownst to humanity, “[nature] answerest / them only with / spring),” (25-27). And here the essence of the human/nature interaction is emphasized. Here, the qualities of humanity’s abusive actions are realized.
Here, we finally witness the very core of nature’s reactions being brought to the surface. The very meaning of life is life itself and the journey to understanding it. And besides all of humanity’s insensitive actions towards nature in achieving a response, the natural world remains as blatant, as spontaneous, yet as constant as ever.
