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30 E. E. Cummings “A Foreword to Krazy” Originally published in The Sewanee Review, Spring 1946 and in George Herriman’s Krazy Kat (New York: Henry Holt, 1946. Copyright © 1946, 1974 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust, from A Miscellany Revised by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. Twenty years ago, a celebration happened—the celebration of Krazy Kat by Gilbert Seldes. It happened in a book called The Seven Lively Arts; and it happened so wisely, so lovingly, so joyously, that recelebrating Krazy would be like teaching penguins to fly. Penguins (as a lot of people don’t realize) do fly not through the sea of the sky but through the sky of the sea—and my present ambition is merely, with our celebrated friend’s assistance, to show how their flying affects every non-penguin. What concerns me fundamentally is a meteoric burlesk melodrama, born of the immemorial adage love will find a way. This frank frenzy (encouraged by a strictly irrational landscape in perpetual metamorphosis) generates three protagonists and a plot. Two of the protagonists are easily recognized as a cynical brick-throwing mouse and a sentimental policeman-dog. The third protagonist—whose ambiguous gender doesn’t disguise the good news that here comes our heroine—may be described as a humbly poetic, gently clownlike, supremely innocent, and illimitably affectionate creature (slightly resembling a child’s drawing of a cat, but gifted with the secret grace and obvious clumsiness of a penguin on terra firma) who is never so happy as when egoist mouse, thwarting altruist-dog, hits her in the head with a brick. Dog hates mouse and worships “cat,” mouse despises “cat” and hates dog, “cat” hates no one and loves mouse. Ignatz Mouse and Offissa Pupp are opposite sides of the same coin. Is Offissa Pupp kind? Only in so far as Ignatz Mouse is cruel. If you’re a twofisted, spineless progressive (a mighty fashionable stance nowadays) Offissa Pupp, who forcefully asserts the will of socalled society, becomes a cosmic angel; while Ignatz Mouse, who forcefully defies society’s socalled will by asserting his authentic own, becomes a demon of anarchy and a fiend of chaos. But if—whisper it—you’re a 100% hidebound reactionary, the foot’s in the other shoe. Ignatz Mouse then stands forth as a hero, pluckily struggling to keep the flag of free-will flying; while Offissa Pupp assumes the monstrous mien of a Goliath, satanically bullying a tiny but indomitable David. Well, let’s flip the coin—so: and lo! Offissa Pupp comes up. That makes Ignatz Mouse “tails.” Now we have a hero whose heart has gone to his head and a villain whose head has gone to his heart. This hero and this villain no more understand Krazy Kat than the mythical denizens of a twodimensional realm understand some threedimensional intruder. The world of Offissa Pupp and Ignatz Mouse is a knowledgeable power-world, in terms of which our unknowledgeable heroine is powerlessness personified. The sensical law of this world is might makes right; the nonsensical law of our heroine is love conquers all. To put the oak in the acorn: Ignatz Mouse and Offissa Pupp (each completely convinced that his own particular brand of might makes right) are simple-minded—Krazy isn’t—therefore, to Offisa Pupp and Ignatz Mouse, Krazy is. But if both our hero and our villain don’t and can’t understand our heroine, each of them can and each of them does misunderstand her differently. To our softheaded altruist, she is the adorably helpless incarnation of saintliness. To our hardhearted egoist, she is the puzzlingly indestructible embodiment of idiocy. The benevolent overdog sees her as an inspired weakling. The malevolent undermouse views her as a born target. Meanwhile Krazy Kat, through this double misunderstanding, fulfills her joyous destiny. Let’s make no mistake about Krazy. A lot of people “love” because, and a lot of people “love” although, and a few individuals love. Love is something illimitable; and a lot of people spend their limited lives trying to prevent anything illimitable from happening to them. Krazy, however, is not a lot of people. Krazy is herself. Krazy is illimitable—she loves. She loves in the only way anyone can love: illimitably. She isn’t morbid and she isn’t longsuffering; she doesn’t “love” someone because he hurts her and she doesn’t “love” someone although...

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