After I "discovered" E. E. Cummings as a collegiate English major, I was so enthralled that for some years thereafter all my typed letters home were done without uppercase letters. I believe I justified it as "increasing my typing speed" but in fact it was more likely an affectation. An article at the
Grand Valley State University website extensively explains
Cummings did not extend his lower case typography to his name:
"...it must be said once and for all that his name should be written and printed with the usual capital letters in their usual places: "E. E. Cummings.''.. in his letters he most frequently used the uppercase form, with his signature at the bottom in caps [above]... We hereby proclaim it to be so, and we hope the dismal lowercase custom will disappear from the face of the earth."
In other news, Kanye West's name should be printed in all uppercase letters, in honor of his literary contributions.
ReplyDeletei remember attending a reading by E. E. Cummings of his poetry in 1960 or 1961 at my university. i enjoyed his poetry so much that i purchased a book of his stuff at the bookstore the next day. i still like to take it off of the shelf now and then and read a little of it. fun stuff.
ReplyDelete"pease porridge hot..."