The Enormous Room: e. e. cummings

E. E. Cummings, "the writer who has instigated morphology," as a critic once called him, is known rather as an eccentric poetry innovator who always wrote his name in lower case. However, about his novel "The Enormous Room" (1922), which was in fact his first published book, Francis Scott Fitzgerald wrote the following words: "Of all the work by young men who have sprung up since 1920 one book survives - 'The Enormous Room' by e. e. cummings." This autobiographic book focuses on Cummings' temporary imprisonment in France during World War I. "The Enormous Room" itself refers to the large room where Cummings slept aside thirty or so prisoners. However, it also serves as an allegory for Cummings' mind and the memories of the prison - such that when he describes the many residents of his shared cell, they still live in the "enormous room" of his mind.