Xiangyu Wu

This paper interprets E.E. Cummings's poem "Me up at does" through the lens of Marshall McLuhan's "Cool/Hot Media" theory. The study argues that the poem, through its "low-definition" forms such as subversive grammar and fragmented typography, successfully constructs itself as a "cool medium" text. This formal characteristic forcibly interrupts the reader's passive reading mode, compelling them to engage in a "participatory reading" that necessitates grammatical reconstruction, image synthesis, and emotional reasoning. The core thesis of this paper is that this unique, form-driven reading mechanism is key to the generation of the poem's ethical force: when readers co-construct the poem's complete scenario and ethical dilemma through their own cognitive efforts, their role shifts from that of a spectator to a "co-author" of meaning and a "complicit participant" in the ethics. Consequently, the poem's final sharp interrogation is internalized as a direct moral self-inquiry due to the reader's deep participation, revealing Cummings's poetic wisdom of using radical form as an ethical apparatus to achieve an embodied moral experience.

E.E. Cummings; Cool/Hot Media Theory; Participatory Reading; Ethics of Reading; Me up at doess

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