[Music] hi and welcome to another episode of essoop's e-lessons today we'll be looking at the poem by ee cummings somewhere i have never traveled gladly beyond so just to give a little bit of context ee cummings was an american poet who served in world war one he's abandoned traditional techniques and structures and these different elements of hispane make it look complicated but they usually deal with something very simple in this case love if we take a look at the title it's essentially the first line of the poem somewhere tells us it's an unknown place i is not capitalized it suggests that he feels that he's not important have never travel tells us once again it's somewhere he has never been before the word gladly tells us that the speaker is eager to go there and beyond once again implies it's further than anything else he's ever experienced before beyond any other relationship that he's ever had previously so the poem takes a serious happy voyage into the world of the speaker and his lover so if we take a look at stanza one some we have never traveled gladly beyond any experience he's talking not about a physical journey but rather an emotional one his relationship is compared to a journey he has never experienced we see that the personal pronoun i is used suggesting that he's speaking the first person so it's from his own personal experience telling us that he's never traveled there but he's going gladly is a paradox a paradox is a statement that seems contradictory but is true on closer inspection so he's happy to experience something that he's never experienced before line two goes on to say your eyes have this silence so this is an example of personification because his lover's eyes are given the ability to speak or rather not speak in the sense so remember that eyes represent windows to the soul so by looking to someone's eyes you can learn a lot about him it suggests that he has a lot to learn about his beloved in line two when he talks about her eyes have this silence this is also an example of synesthesia the synesthesia is the mixed experience of senses we see that eyes usually experience sight but he's also referring to his sense of hearing where he hears nothing from them the colon in line two tells us that the explanation will follow his explanation says in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me which i cannot touch because they are too near so if we look at the term frail gesture is referring to an insignificant mannerism basically something that she doesn't even realize she's doing that doesn't seem like a big deal that has the ability to enclose him an enclosure means to surround or captivate line four he says which i cannot touch because they are too near once again a paradox and this is alluding to the mysterious power of love because emotions cannot be touched but they are so close to him he feels it all the time so the senses that we see in stanza one are hearing and touch if we move on to stanza 2 he says your slightest look so in sensor 1 he referred to a frail gesture and here he refers to a slightest look so a small subtle look so once again nothing big nothing that other people might notice but he says your slightest look easily will unclose me and using the word enclosed basically means will open me up though i have closed myself as fingers so we see a simile in line six the speaker compares himself to a closed fist it suggests that he's guarded perhaps he's been hurt in the past we also see in line six and seven the words closed and open seem to be contrasted so this juxtaposition is a contrast of two opposite ideas he says you open always petal by petal myself as spring opens her first rose so by saying you open always petal by petal myself it's a metaphor where the man compares himself to a flower opening and this is quite an unusual comparison because usually women are compared to flowers but the fact that he's comparing himself to a flower that opens suggests his vulnerability and when he says spring opens touching skillfully mysteriously her first throws we see that spring is personified it's given the ability to touch and in that way to cause flowers to open in line seven and eight we also see a simile he's comparing the way that his beloved gets him to open up to the way that spring opens flowers so in this simile the woman he loves is compared to spring and it suggests that she gives him life just as spring brings life to the world so it's interesting to see how he describes this relationship it's one where his beloved is gentle and yet able to make him feel vulnerable but not in a negative way okay we see that the speaker's beloved treats him as though he is something precious in line seven when he talks about the petals it suggests that she brings out the best in him as though he's a flower in bloom when he is with her in stanza 2 we also see the sense of dutch being referred to if we move on to stanza 3 he says oh if your wish be to close me he's addressing his beloved and saying he will do as she wishes and so this tells us that this woman has power over him he says i and my life will shut very beautifully suddenly so we know that the speaker here is at her mercy so it says my life will shut as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending so we see a simile here the speaker compares his closing off of emotions to a flower that closes due to the cold so we see a contrast to the imagery we saw in the previous stanza where he said he was a flower that opens petal by petal but he says if she wanted the opposite he would close just as the cold of winter causes flowers to close in line 11 he talks about how the flower imagines the snow and this is an example of personification because we see the flower is given the ability to imagine okay and the fact that this flower closes from the cold suggests that their love will be protected from winter and winter represents hardships so i know that there's a lot of figures of speech here but i think it's more important to understand the ideas that he's trying to express here the ideas of love and his relationship more than being able to pick apart each figure of speech if we look at the diction remember diction refers to the word choice the words beautifully and carefully suggests that this power that she has over him is a positive thing moving on to stanza four there's nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility so perceive here means to understand or to experience and in line 14 the power of your intense fragility we see another paradox it's as though he's talking about the strength of something weak i once again reminds us of how he said her most fragile gesture and how her slightest look can enclose him so the woman he loves is not physically strong but his emotions for her are it suggests that nothing in this world is stronger than his love for her in line 14 when he's talking about the power of her intense fragility he says whose texture compels me with the color of its countries texture usually refers to physical touch or something you can feel but in this case he doesn't mean something you can physically feel but rather something he emotionally feels so these emotions compel him with the color of his countries rendering death and forever with each breathing so compel suggests that pushes or forces him and we see a metaphor here where fragility is compared to countries which suggests that it is vast and it emphasizes the power that his beloved has over him in line 16 rendering means offering death and forever death and forever is essentially talking about eternity and death and we see that putting these two words together are a juxtaposition of contrasting ideas okay this juxtaposition suggests that her love has the power to destroy him or make him immortal in stanza 5 we see the use of brackets so the fact that he's putting this bracket suggests that it would be a separate thought he says i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses so basically telling us he cannot explain the power she has over him once again we see this imagery of closes and open suggesting that he bends to her well and he says the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses so once again we see synesthesia eyes are experiencing the ability to speak remember eyes are windows to the soul and roses are a symbol of beauty and love so the fact that he's saying your eyes are deeper than all roses it suggests that the beauty of her soul is greater than the beauty of all the roses on earth it says nobody not even the rain has such small hands so rain is personified here as having hands suggesting that it's gentle and nurturing and once again telling us that the power she has over him is not a negative thing he is happy to be vulnerable and saying nobody not even reign has such small hands tells us she's unique nothing compares to her so if we look at the imagery there's a juxtaposition of ideas of opening and closing we see an extended metaphor throughout this poem where the speaker sees his lover as having the power to close and unclose him and close meaning to bring out the best in him to evoke love and appreciation and close meaning to restrict his emotions there's a lot of imagery of flowers and nature and quite interesting to see that man is described as nature as being in harmony with nature and this also suggests to us that love is something natural we see imagery referring to his lover's eyes in multiple stanzas and remember that eyes are the windows to the soul so suggesting almost that they are not mere lovers but soul mates if we look at the style the style of the sperm reflects a stream of consciousness it's almost as though he's writing as thoughts are occurring to him okay and this would also explain the unusual word order and spacing so the odd punctuation and syntax implies that the speaker cannot express his love as impact by using conventional grammar or vocabulary because her power over him it's mysterious it's not something that he can explain by sticking to the normal rules of what everyone has experienced it's almost as though it's a diary writing it expresses feelings without any editing we see the lack of capital letters showing devotion to his beloved as though he is less important than her and we see that it is broken up into five quatrains so remember quatrains basically means four lines cummings uses words and imagery in a way that is unusual it seems illogical but it helps to create this vivid and extremely moving picture of his experiences and his love for this woman the themes we see present in this poem is obviously love but not just physical love but it focuses more on emotional love we see nature there's lots of references to flowers to their beauty how she's more beautiful than roses but also how he can open and close like a flower at her command we see the idea of vulnerability versus power and just because she has power over him doesn't mean that it's a negative thing there's also a role reversal where we see the woman is in a position of power usually in a relationship between a man and woman the power dynamic is the man has more power but we see that even though the woman seems to have all the power in this poem the speaker who is a man trusts her and is completely comfortable with the woman making all the decisions and taking the lead in this relationship if you found this video helpful don't forget to hit like subscribe and check out my other videos