| Abstract | Poetry and music are inextricably linked. Together, words and music can have a profound effect on the listener. Just as a poet carefully manipulates text to create poetry in various lengths and styles, composers also seek to create a meaningful composition by crafting musical elements. When text and music are combined to create a song, there must be a marriage between the text and the music. A composer then becomes not just a musical craftsman, but a poetic scholar as they seek to create a significant composition. E. E. Cummings writes poetry in a nontraditional way, setting text with space and punctuation to create meaning and ambiguity. This study examines how five American composers create musical meaning from Cummings's poem "in Just-." Included in this thesis is a brief biographical background of Cummings, followed by an in-depth textual and formal analysis of "in Just-." A recording of Cummings's own public performance of the poem is examined in a similar fashion. The next section of the paper provides musical analyses of five settings of the poem composed by John Cage, John Duke, Dominick Argento, Priscilla McLean, and Blaise Ferrandino. Each of these five subsections includes brief background, an analysis of form, and commentary on text setting and affect. |
