i sing of Olaf glad and big

i sing of Olaf glad and big

In E.E Cummings’ poem i sing of Olaf glad and big, he uses a particularly interesting method of meter. Aside from just a few lines in the whole poem that use a clearly recognizable meter, the rest of the poem seems to be a gigantic blob of metric chaos. We know that the poet fought during World War I, so the chaos of the poem may very well be a representation of the brutal trench warfare that made the war so infamous. Throughout the entire poem, we see a severe lack of grammatical correctness. This along with the lack of proper meter seems to fit perfectly with the story of the poem.

“i sing of Olaf glad and big / whose warmest heart recoiled at war: / a conscientious object-or” (ll 1-3). In the first three lines of the poem, when we are introduced to the protagonist Olaf, Cummings uses an extremely strict iambic meter. In the third and final line of this opening stanza we see that Cummings changes the word objector to “object-or.” This change, forces the reader to finish off reading the stanza with the iambic meter, stressing its importance in the poem. I think that Cummings uses iambic meter as a mockery of both traditional poetry and the government who killed Olaf for standing up for what he believed in.

The next fourteen lines of the poem are where the chaos begins. The second stanza is where Cummings begins telling the story of Olaf and how he was tortured for his being a “conscientious object-or” (l 1). The scenes of torture that are depicted are quite brutal, and rarely seen in most poetry, but as I’ve already said, this poem is anything but traditional. The lack of proper meter and respect for classic poetic etiquette is in my opinion a perfect way to express both the lack of respect the government had for Olaf and his beliefs as well as the lack of respect for human life seen throughout the entire war. At the end of the second stanza the lines “responds, without getting annoyed / “I will not kiss your fucking flag”” (ll 18-19) bring back the strong iambic meter. The mocking meter fits right in at this point in the poem because here we see Olaf mocking the government and what they believe in by referring to their policies as a “fucking flag” (l 19).

Following this depiction of Olaf’s defiance, we are thrown back into yet another brutal scene or torture. Here we learn of the further torturing of both Olaf and some fellow object-ors. While his fellows seemed to have given in, Olaf stays adamant in his anti-war beliefs. In the last two lines of this stanza, we see the iambic meter again. Here Olaf is once again verbalizing his refusal to his superiors despite his being tortured. “does almost ceaselessly repeat / “there is some shit I will not eat”” (ll 32-33). I believe that the “shit” Olaf is referring to is the concept of conformity that the governments is so strict about.

This is the last straw. Unfortunately for Olaf, the government is now done trying to fight with him. “our president,being of which / assertions dully notified / threw the yellowsonofabitch / into a dungeon,where he died” (ll 34-37). The president has decided that Olaf has earned himself a presumably life sentence in prison. It could be that they just gave up because they realized that he was too strong in his beliefs, or maybe that they just got fed up with his insubordination; in the end it doesn’t matter. Olaf is dead because he stood for what he believed in.

In the final stanza of the poem Cummings immortalizes Olaf and what he did with an extremely powerful choice of words. “preponderatingly because / unless statistics lie he was / more brave than me:more blond than you” (ll 40-42). Even in death, Olaf now has more than any of us could ever imagine. He stood for what he believed in literally until the second he died. He showed a quality that most people can never even fathom. Olaf believed in the value of human life. In his death, he did more for his cause than any living person could have done. It is for this reason that I think Cummings chose Olafs story as the basis for his most unconventional poem.