O sweet spontaneous Summary & Analysis
by E. E. Cummings

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"[O sweet spontaneous]" appears in E. E. Cummings's first poetry collection, Tulips and Chimneys (1923). The poem imagines nature as a mysterious, "spontaneous" force that the human intellect can never fully grasp. It conveys this idea through an extended metaphor, depicting "earth" as a beautiful woman and philosophy, science, and religion as lecherous men aggressively pursuing her. The poem implies that these intellectual pursuits are an attempted violation of nature—but one that nature successfully resists.

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