Next to of Course God
Next to of Course God - meaning Summary
Patriotic Rhetoric Satirized
Cummings mocks jingoistic American patriotism by collapsing hymnlike language and boastful clichés into a frantic monologue. The speaker strings patriotic phrases and exclamations into absurdity, then celebrates unquestioning wartime sacrifice as heroic without irony. The poem’s abrupt stage note — the speaker drinks water — undercuts the rhetoric, exposing hypocrisy and the emptiness of ceremonial patriotism. Overall it satirizes how language can sanitize violence and suppress doubt.
Read Complete Analyses“next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn’s early my country ’tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beaut- iful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute?” He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
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