Summary
"anyone lived in a pretty how town" is a poem written by E. E. Cummings, often styled as e. e. cummings. This poem was first published in 1940.
"anyone lived in a pretty how town" explores conformity, tradition, and monotony. This poem describes a small town with residents who act collectively, with the exception of the two main characters, who are called "noone and "anyone." The bells in the town chime frequently, the seasons pass by, and people get married, have children, and die. This acts as a monotonous backdrop for noone and anyone.
What exactly makes these two different from the townspeople is not clear. Anyone, whom the townspeople do not care for, lives differently from them, and noone falls in love with him. Children guess at this, but soon cease to care.
Eventually, anyone dies, and noone soon follows him. They are buried side by side, and time goes on.
Analysis
Cummings uses vagueness to emphasize the monotony of these townspeople's lives. No details are given about any lives except anyone's and noone's, and those, too, are sketchy; anyone "sang his didn't he danced his did," but the readers are given no practical information.
Cummings also uses refrain throughout this poem. He names the seasons in succession several times, though each time the order is different, as well as "sun moon stars rain," which is repeated as is one time, and once in a different order, as "stars rain sun moon." This emphasizes the cyclical nature of the townspeople's lives; the slight changes in these refrains do not detract from their hypnotizing quality. Bells are also referenced several times throughout the poem, as are the sounds they make, "(both dong and ding.)" The bells mark the passage of time, which is countered by the stagnancy of the town.
anyone and noone offer a pleasant relief from the monotony. Although they don't do anything that provokes the interest of their fellow residents beyond a passing curiosity, they are somehow offbeat. The poem does not quite say how or why they are different from the "someones" who marry their "everyones"; the readers are merely given slightly more information about them. anyone is described as singing and dancing, while the townspeople are described as reaping and sowing. Cummings suggests that they possess a vividness that the townspeople lack; they seem to live more fully, and in finding each other, have completed their world. Yet they die isolated from one another as well as from the townspeople, though they are buried side by side. The tone of the end is murky; Cummings writes about these characters' deaths very matter-of-factly. Though they live differently than the other townspeople, anyone and noone meet the same fates, marrying and dying.
The syntax and grammar used in this poem are unconventional and are a marked contrast with the hyper-conventionality of the townspeople. This style of writing is typical of Cummings' style, and when used in a narrative as it is here, it adds ambiguity to every detail and pushes the focus to the rhythm and the sequence of the words in each line. Instead of seeing the details of anyone and noone's lives, we feel the outlines of these details through the language.
The very first line of the poem feels light in tone, compounded by the vagueness of the first word, "anyone." The phrase "pretty how town" feels vaguely complimentary, but the reader may also pick up on a question within the phrase: "pretty how?" The second line—"with up so floating many bells down"—doesn't quite make straightforward sense, but the reader gets the sense of motion from the floating and the words "up" and "down." The use of the word "so" here is ambiguous; the word could be a conjunction, an adverb, or even a pronoun. The rhythm here is iambic, with the first emphasis falling on the "up," but by the end of the line, the bells dampen the rhythm with two emphasized syllables. That downward movement, too, seems to mimic the movement of bells. The interest Cummings shows in this bell-centered imagery and language perhaps indicates the importance of temporality and rhythm in this poem.
Then comes the first mention of "spring summer autumn winter," which appears several times in different iterations in the poem, again underlining the importance of the steady movement of time in this poem.
Next comes the line, "he sang his didn't he danced his did." Here Cummings uses a verb where we would expect a noun. If one looks for a literal meaning in this line, perhaps one could understand it to say that this character does, or dances, what he knows, and considers, or sings, what he doesn't. However, this line is the first place in the poem where Cummings indicates that "anyone" is a character, rather than referring generically to literally anyone. The lens of the poem abruptly focuses in this line, but what it focuses on is blurred by the syntax. The reader is given a glimpse into this life, but something is held just beyond our vision.
The next lines seem to straightforwardly denounce the townspeople, saying, "Women and men(both little and small)/cared for anyone not at all." By referring to them as "both little and small," the speaker of the poem seems to editorialize a little; a favorable interpretation of that line is difficult to muster up. Then, with the "anyone" in the second line, it seems like that they do not care for anyone at all, including the character named anyone. Here Cummings' choice of names allows for ambiguity.
The following line, "they sowed their isn't they reaped their same," again uses a verb and an adverb ("isn't," or "is not") in the place of a noun. The words "is not" seem to indicate that these women and men sow the fields with some sort of absence instead of with seeds, and then they reap "their same." The use of the possessive here is interesting; it places the "same" even more firmly in the possession of the townspeople. Everyone seems to sow and reap the same things, while the generations pass in a blur. The following line, "sun moon stars rain," echoes the earlier line "spring summer autumn winter"; this is an example of how time is compressed in this poem. This stanza uses the rhyme scheme AABB; rhyme is used a number of times in this poem, but not consistently.
The next stanza, "children guessed(but only a few/and down they forgot as up they grew/autumn winter spring summer)/that noone loved him more by more," has an almost limerick-like rhythm due to its use of anapests, or two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. This appears in the words "only a few" and "they forgot." The rhyme compounds this sensation, but the third and fourth lines of this poem end in a slant rhyme between the words "summer" and "more." Here, time is still intimately involved with the narrative; it seems to refer to the children's growing up. This stanza is one of the most straightforward in the poem. Here Cummings dives more deeply into anyone and noone's narrative.
Cummings continues to play with rhyme in the following stanza. The first two lines, "when by now and tree by leaf/she laughed his joy she cried his grief," rhyme perfectly, but the next lines, "bird by snow and stir by still/anyone's any was all to her," turn the rhyme around so it does not appear at the end of the lines; instead, "stir by still" and "all to her" are mirror images of each other. This may act as an echo for how noone and anyone mirror and revolve around each other.
The next lines, "someones married their everyones/laughed their cryings and did their dance," returns the reader to the more general population of the pretty how town. These lines also repeat the dancing imagery mentioned earlier when describing anyone, but the words have been reversed; anyone "danced his dids," while the townspeople "did their dance." This image acts as a link between anyone and the townspeople, but it also sets anyone apart from them; he works in reverse and swims against the tide.
The townspeople's actions are then further described: "(sleep wake hope and then)they/said their nevers they slept their dream." The sequence of actions echoes the earlier sequences of seasons and weather. By ending the sequence with the word "then," Cummings suggests further actions, but by now the reader may suspect that these sequences are of cyclical occurrences. This feeling of ensnaring cyclicality is compounded in the following line, where the townspeople say "their nevers." The word "never" suggests futility in whatever the townspeople say. The phrase "they/slept their dream," especially compared to anyone's singing and dancing, feels very passive; the word "dream" can evoke thoughts of goals and objectives, particularly in the context of America (the American Dream). By "sleeping" their dreams, the townspeople may allow their lives to slip by without realizing their individual goals. According to this interpretation, the American Dream fails the townspeople; the American Dream is about both success and individuality, about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps and distinguishing oneself from the rest. The townspeople instead fade into homogeny, and the work they do is repetitive and ceaseless. The question remains about whether Cummings is criticizing the townspeople as well as the idea of the perfect American town; he may be criticizing the townspeople for buying into the idea (their "hope") of the American Dream despite its clear pitfalls.
The next lines see instances of repetition from the first two stanzas: "stars rain sun moon/(and only the snow can begin to explain/how children are apt to forget to remember/with up so floating many bells down)." The line "sun moon stars rain" has flipped around in this occurrence. This upsets the rhyme, which would have been perfect if the line had reappeared in its earlier form. This disturbance mirrors the way anyone and noone disturb the peace of this town; it could also refer to the failure of the children's memories. Cummings' addition of the words "to remember" to the second line is interesting because it does not change the meaning of the line but adds another layer of separation between the children and their memories; this suggests that the adults of this town are stripped of their childhood imaginativeness and curiosity.
The following line, "with up so floating many bells down," is a direct refrain from the first stanza. This line is one of the most mysterious in this poem, and this repetition does not help with clarity. The line is now linked to the children, and the bells' movement seems to involve the passing of time, so this line thematically fits in with the rest of the poem, but no clear interpretation can be gleaned from it.
The next lines—"one day anyone died i guess/(and noone stooped to kiss his face)"—introduce an "I" in this poem for the first time. The unsureness of the words "i guess" makes it clear that the narrative of anyone and noone is not one that the narrator is intimately familiar with; while the words anyone and noone appear to be metonymies used to name specific characters, this line suggests otherwise. Yet the following line, "noone stooped to kiss his face," seems very specific and tender. By introducing ambiguity, Cummings may suggest that noone and anyone are as universal as the someones and everyones; they are nonconformists, but they are not unique.
The following lines continue the tenderness of the stooping: "busy folk buried them side by side/little by little and was by was." By describing the townspeople as "busy" in this context, the narrator suggests that the townspeople barely had time or cared enough to bury noone and anyone. However, the focus of these lines is in "side by side/little by little and was by was." noone and anyone's togetherness is compounded by the repetition of the mirrored phrases. "little by little" suggests incremental change, while "was by was" places them in the past tense. From these lines, we may gather that anyone and noone make their transition into death, into the past tense, together.
This sensation continues in the following lines, "all by all and deep by deep/and more by more they dream their sleep/noone and anyone earth by april/wish by spirit and if by yes." These lines seem to refer to noone and anyone's death; they become "earth by april," but unlike the living townspeople, they "dream their sleep" instead of the other way around. This suggests that some sort of lively consciousness exists from anyone and noone despite their deaths; by describing death this way, Cummings suggests that their death is almost as illusory as a dream. The two transcend death in a way the townspeople could not, even in life. They become as insubstantial but everlasting as wishes and spirits, and if "if" suggests a question, the question is answered by "yes."
The final stanza includes many lines that have already appeared in some form in the poem: "Women and men(both dong and ding)/summer autumn winter spring/reaped their sowing and went their came/sun moon stars rain." The men and women, by being compared to the noise of the bells, are intrinsically tied into time. The seasons continue to pass, the sun and the stars continue their regular appearances, and the people "went their came," which seems to say they do the things plotted out for them. The world indeed goes on without anyone and noone, and it seems unchanged.
