MARIANNE MOORE: A NOTORIOUS VIRGIN

Mary Christh McLaren

Submiüed in partial fulnllmem of the rquirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Dalhousie University Halifàx, Nova Scotia December 1998

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For my parents. Table of Contents

Titie Page .-1 Signature Page U Copyright Agreement Form iii Dedication iv Table of Contents v List of Illustrations Abstract Acknowledgements Pre face The Reception Histoy of Marianne Moore The First Reviews The Po- Debate Reviews by T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams The Stniggles of Othcr Reviewers A Cult of Personality? Deference to T. S. ELiot The Notorious Virgin Conctusion Marianne Moore Amongst the Modems Moore and ber Fernale Contempotaries The Sin of Self Promotion Moore Amongst the High Modernists Moore at 27~Di41 Conclusion "1 Should Like To Be Alone": The Feminist Politics of Marianne Moore Poetic Voice Quotations Humility and Restraint Marriage A Reading of "hilarriage" Moore's Feminist Politics Conclusion Bibliomhy List of Iilustrations

Figure 1. "The Night Watch," Rembraodt Harmensz Van Rijn Marianne Moore was highly regarded by ber modernist contemporaries as an innovative and important pet By the tirne of her death in 1972, however, she received much les academic consideraiion than other pets of her generation. This thesis investigates when and why Marianne Moore's work ceased to be considered a principal component of the modem American litemy canon. In C)iapter 1, chronological study of the reviews of Moore's work reveals a shift in critical focus fiom her work, to her personality, and finally, by the Fifües and Sixties, to the stereotyped image of Moore as a spinster. It is this that resulted in both the misrepresentation of Moore as a timid figure in the modernist movement, and the inadequate critical consideration of her work. With tbis in min& Chapter 2 examinees Moore as an influence on her modernist peers. It examines Moore's reviews of and leîters to other modernist pets, as well as haeditorship at Tk Dial magazk hm1925 to 1929, in order to establish her authority within the poetic cornmunity, and her iafluence on the shaping of modemism itself. Finally, Chapter 3 analyzes Moore's poetry. It examines the terms by which she apparentiy withdraws her voice, and then attempts to show how in fact Moore's voice can be found. In spite of ha reputation among some critics as a tirnid woman, Marianne Moore emerges fiom her work as a strong and independent fwiinist figure.

vii Acknowledgements

1 would like to take this oppoRunity to thank my parents and Dan for their tolerance during the development of this work, and for aiiowing me to subject them to regular doses of Marianne Moore's poetry. Thanks as well to Lynn Lantz for her help in administrative matters, and to Christi Luckyj for her council. 1 am gmtefui to Patricia Wilïis for generously sending me a copy of eollected essays on Moore thaî she had edited, Marianne Moore: Woman adPoet, as it proved to be an hvaiuable resource. 1 would also like to thank my second and third readers, Marjorie Stone and Bruce Greenfield, for their valuable comments. FinaMy, 1 would especially like to thank my supervisor, Len Diepeveen, for his encouragement, criticism, and patience. At the time of her death in 1972, twentieth century American poet Marianne Moore had achieved public recognition as a popular figure. Her face appeared on postage stamps, and she had made the cover of Esquire magazine in the 1970s. She was practically a household name in her hometown of New York. Academically, however, she received very little consideration. Just over twenty-five years later, Moore has been erased fiom the memory of popular culture, but is beginning to make a comeback in academic circles.' Fiip through the pages of any anthology of modem poetry today, and you will undoubtedly corne across an entry or two of works by Mme. Her poetry, after ail, provides a usefid and wncise illustration of syliabic verse, and her poem "Poetry" in particular adds a wonderMy impudent element to any collection The predominant focus in many of these books, however, is on Moore's poetic technique or her quirky personality; there is a general avoidance of the ethics and playfiil ironies that are so richly embodied by her poetry. The Norton Anthoiogy of Modern Poetry, for example, discusses

Moore's syllabic technique, but then tums to discuss her visits to the Bronx Zoo and her penchant for basebail (419). Moore is known more for her personality than for her body of work or influence on other poets. She still teceives less cntical attention than her High

Modernist contemporaries, who had themselves championed her work in the twenties and thirties.

' An interesthg cornparison cen be made bennai the academic resurgence of Moore and the relative drop in academic popdarity of certain poets wbse academic popdarity had reached a high point in the sixties. A simple MLA ~eatchreveals thaî since 198 1 there are only 85 ciiations for Allen Tate and 93 for MoreRocthke, but 272 citations for Marianne Moore. Figure 1. 'The Night Watch," Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn. Oil on carivas, 363 x437 crn, 1642. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.

The question is, then, who was Marianne Moore really, and what role did she in the modernist community? In his 1983 retrospective for Partisan Review, Glenwa

Wescott, Moore's Li felong friend and correspondent, illustrates her position within th modernist conununity as follows:

Do you remember, can you see in mernory, Rembrandt's so-called The ffiglrt Watch, [see figure 11 which is in fact a &y watch? . . .About thirty upper-middle-class Amsterdam gentlemen constituting a guard of honor troop foward in most unrnilitary order out of cavernous darkness into magicai sunshine. . . in their rnidst, mystery of mysteries, a little childlike woman or womanly child, very blond, as in a dream, clad in numerous raiment of greenish gold; having, suspended from her belt, a white chicken with feet of gold; wearing also, on a ribbon, a rich purse or pouch. Thus, to my imagination, Miss Moore had ken, in the rnidst of her fellow writers, the literary establishment of the century. 1 often seem to myself deficient in humor, but when 1 first thought of this a while ago, 1 laughed aloud; and it amuses me still. If this were a lecture ratber tban an essay.. . perhaps 1 could attach twentieth century names to al1 of Rembrandt's forgotien burghen.. . wbether or not it made you laugh, you would easily perceive Miss Moore's likeness to the faiylike small personage who incomprehensibly strayed into Rembrandt's ken and captivated him while he was doing this vast commissioned work. She bad the same Titian blondness.. . But my point, worth thinking about, is that she was in the middle of the picture, a mystery in the middle of the picture-how did it happen? . . .whence came ber intellect and temperament fantasy and genius? Who could have foreseen her? (399- 400)

This higb?y omate porirait of Marianne Moore initially seems to sukribe to the typicai view of Moore as the notorious virgin pet, a childiike figure wtio is in stark con- to the rest ofthe comtnunity of male modemists. As it progresses, however, the Moore that begins to emerge is magical, mysterious and anonymous. As he continues, Wescott adds that with her contempotaries, Moore

. . .renrained detached, fùli of het own devices. Furthemore, both in life and career, she never seemed to march dinctly at us, hmbackground to foreground, out of tradition into modemity, as ambitious happy-oaîured men and women in the arts are inclined to do. Like the girl in Rembrandt's picture, her movement was cmssways, hmleb to right, bnediag the mode (mode after mode), travershg the parade, a law unto herselc more exalted and more focused than the generality of literary mortais. (400)

The figue who symbolizes Moore for Wescon, is the anomaly within the painting.

Although she is positioned slightly aside hmthe center, the light shines directly upon her, attracting the attention of the viewer. in this scheme, Moore is more than just a detached figure-sbe assumes a power that is fbeled by her ability to move with or aght the community at her own convenience.

So wbat happened to this image of authority aod autonomy? How did this powerfùi image of Moore get replaced by the perception of Moore as the overly polite and subjugated puritanical spinster?7 1s Wescotî's remembrance of Moore just a product of his imagination, or did she really exist-and cm we resmther? Marianne Moore received much praise hmher couternporaries in the twenties and thirties. The essays of

Eliot and Williams, for example, elevate Moore as an important and equal artist within the modemist poetic commmity. Still, hmearly on, the discornfort that they had regarding her gender is obvious. While Eliot is elevating Moore, for example, he isolates her by referring to her poetry as "femininew("Marianne Moore," 597). The problem with this was that other reviewers, distracted by the complexities that Moore's work challengeci them with, began to defcr to Eliot's depictions of Mme. His comments, although ofhm taken out of their original conte* became the standards by which

Moore's poeûy was received. By the thirties and forties, critical focus on Moore concentrated more on her personality and popularity than on her work itself. By the late fifties and sixties, Moore haâ fallen out of cntical favor. Aithough she became a public icon, she was no longer considered to be an integral part of the modemist literary canon.

Even ment feminist critics (such as Susame Jubasz and Alicia Ostriker), have subscribed to the stereotype of Moore as a spinster, and charged her with conforming to her male modemist contemporaries. It is only withh the past two decades that Moore scholarship has made a resurgence.

Moore's drop in popuiarity may bave resulted hmthe manner in which she

This perception of Moore becornes pmaknt in lata critical discussions of Moore in the 1960s and 1970s. See John Updike's "Notes" in t)ie 26 Jan. 1957 edition of The New York(32,243-9), and Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi's "A Cornmon Language: The American Woman Poetn in ShaAespeate's SISlers: Feminist Ess4ys on Women Pms(tdited by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Bloornington: Indiana University h,1979). presents herself in her work Whereas many of her modernist counterparts consciously profess themselves to be geniuses and proclaim their works to be masterpieces, Moore's work evokes a sense of her humility. Her more miaiaîurist writings reflect her modesty, and do not profess genîus-and professing genius is a cultural phenornenon which is arguably central to modemism.

Timothy Moms, in his 1995 book Becoming Canonical in American Poehy, is correct when he contends that a problem with American literary scholarship is that it bas developed based on what he terms the "poetics of presence." He believes that historically, American critics have assigned value only to those writers Who appear to be more persodly present in their work, such as Walt Whitman, and devalued îhose which do not. It is the presence of authors' personalities within their worb that determine the worth of a text, and hem placement within the Literary canon, and not the texts themselves. If we are to accept Moms' notion, as 1 do, tbat the "poetics of presence" is the driving force behind a poet's placement within the canon, then it is possible thaî the humility that Moore consciously wove into the fabnc of her work has held her back hm serious consideration.

It is this apparent retraction hmher work, that 1 believe has resulted in both the misrepresentation of Moore as a àmid figure in the modernist movement, and the inadequate critical consideration of her work. By focusing on the image of Moore that had been constructed by critics in the fifties and sixties, this thesis investigates when and why Moore's work ceased to be considenid a principal component of the modern

American literary canon. Chapter 1 is a reception history of Moore, which examines the contemporary reviews of Moore's work throughout her mer. It offers reasons for this shift in criticai focus fiom Moore's work to her stereotyped 'spinster' personality.

Chapter 2 examines Moore as an influence on her modemist peers. It examines Moore's

reviews of and lette= to other moâernist poets, as well as her editorship at The Diuf

magazine fiom 1925 to 1929, in order to establish her auîhority within the poetic community, and her influence on the shaping of modemism itself. Finally, Chapter 3 analyzes Moore's poetry. It examines the tem by which she apparently withdraws her voice, and then attempts to show bow in fact Moore's voice can be found. in spite of her reputation among some critics as a timid woman, Marianne Moore emerges hmher work as a strong and independent figure that Glenway Wescott remembers: "a law unto herself, more exalted and more focused than the generality of literary mortals" (400). A Notorious VU.gin: Tbe Rcceptioa Histo y of Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore's poetry appeam in litemy magazines as early as 1909; by the end of

191 8, she was publishing in such noted little magazines as The Egoist, Po-,

Conternporary Verse, O~hers,and ThP Littie Review. Moore's poetry was highly

experimental in tbat it dismissed traditional poetic diction, phrasing adform, and began to work in a new area of language and subject matter mt yet imagined by other poets. ... She reduces her poetic expression to only tbat which is essential, by scnitrniwng an

image and expressing it with precision. This poetic me- produced intensely visual poetry, such as "ne Fish," or very cryptic works such as "An Octopus," which juxtaposes two subjects as if one, and speaks of one thing when actuaily meaning the other.

Marianne Moore was served briîiiantly by the most astute of poet critics, her style quickly gainhg the notice and approval of predominant literary figures such as H. D.,

Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot, who laud the inteilectual and dficult nature of her poetry, and her innovative poetic technique. SUL while Moore's experimentation with lyrical tone, rhyme and poetic form was admüed by supporters of technical innovations in poehy, it was initiaily opposed by other critics with more iraditional poetic expectations. who opedy questioned wheîher her work shouid be wnsidered poetry at dl.

Nevertheless, by the mid 1920s, Marianne Moore appeared to be Myentrenched in the modemist poetic cornmunity.

Still, Marianne Moore's work remained difficult for many critics to understand, and as her work moved outside the reaim of little poetry magazines and into more mainstream publications by the mid 1930s, cntics begin to defer to particular reviews of

Moore by T. S. Eliot, and by the 1950s William Carlos Wiiarns, as testaments to her worth as a poet This deference and the attempt to popularize Moom's work inevitably lirnits the ternis by which her work is described. The critics focus only on wbat Eliot and

Williams deem important Since both Eliot and Williams prair Mwre for her technique-the aîtention she pays to minute detail and her capacity as an observer of the minute-this becomes the theme of most teviews. It is easier for -y critics to consider

Moore as preoccupied with surfaces and objects of seose experiences, than attempt to clariQ her work to a wider audience. Moore is eventuaily regarded more as a higbly technical pet who writes only of trivialities, than as one who tackles larger issues.

Focusing only on her technique, bowever, denies the emotional and etbical qualities of her poetry. Moore herself wouid corne to be perceived as unemotional-and fkigid and fussy-as well. This, in combination with an overwhelming focus on ber reclusive and eccentric lifestyle, domhates reviews of the forties and fifties, and continues to be echoed in certain discussions even today. By the tirne of her death in 1972, Moore's work was widely misunderstood and triviaiized, and had virtually been âropped hmthe literary canon. It is only in the pst two decades that vaiuable Moore criticism bas begun to re-emerge.

Tbe Fimt Reviews

Years before Marianne Moore had published a collection of her poeûy, her poetic contributions in various little magazines caught the attention of iduential modemist critics like H. D., dosesupport would be cntical to Moore's reception. H. D.'s review of Moore's poetry in the August 1916 Ego& intends to prove that Moore's work, aibeit cornplex, is a valuable contribution to the modemist movement. It is a significant review of Moore, not only because it is one of the earliest reviews, but because of its emphasis on Moore's importance to the progress of modem poetry. Stressing Moore's wit, H. D. refers to the poems as "curiously wrought patterns, these quaint tums of thought and conceaied, half-playfirl ironies" (1 18). She reassures her readers that although Moore's work is difficult to understand, it dazs hdeed "wan somethingw (1 18). She notes ihat

Moore is capable of writing poetry that offers a Udirectpresentation of beauty" and

'Wear, flawless tones" (1 18). To emphasize the importance of Moore's worlananship,

H. D. refers to her as a "perfêct sworâsman," "perfect technician," and "perfect craftsman" (1 18). Finaiiy, H. D. asserts that that the poems prove that "Miss Moore is an

American" (1 19). She insists that Moore

. . . is fighting in her country a battle against squaior and commercialism. We are di fighting the same battle. And we must sîrengthen each other in this one absolute bond-our devotion to the beautifid English language. (1 19)

H. D. is nmi in her conviction that Moore is an important member of the modemkt poetic community.

Ezra Pound reviewed Moore's work in the March 1918 issue of Lide Review, in which he coilectively discusses the contributions of both Moore and Mina Loy in Aified

Kreymborg's 1917 Others AnthoIogy. This is an important review for Moore; Pound's attention alone suggests that she is signifiwit enough to earn his notice. Pound's predominant interest in this review, however, is to use Loy and Moore in denning his own poetic terminology. On the whole, Pound spnds fa more time defining ternis such as "logopoeia," and relativeiy httle consideraiion is given to differentiating the two pets' work.' As H. D. had done kfore him, Pound praises both Moore and Loy for producing work which is "distinctly Amencan in quality," but without any "exaggerated

'nationalism"' (Pound, 56-7). He writes that

- . . without any clamors about nationality, these girls have written a distinctly national product, they have written something which could not have come out of any other country. (58)

Pound Mernotes that Wheir work is neither simple, sensuous nor passionate," which he concludes is important, as modem poetry need not be governed by these qualities (57).

He specifically praises Moore's work for both its intellectualism and its wit. His intention in the revkw, he writes, is to praise; however, the praise is somewbat backhanded. Pound notes that Moore's obscur@ can be more of a flaw than a strength.

He writes that he has "seen a great deal of rubbish" hmbot& Moore and Loy, and that while he personally nnds their work both "Uiteresting and readable," he is "aware that even the poems before me would drive numerous not wholly unintelligent readers into a fiiry of rage-out-of-pudement" (58). This does littie to elevate either woman as a serious pet, and serves more to advance Pound's superionty as both a critic and a reader.

T. S. Eliot's review of the Others AnthoIogy in the May 19 18 issue of The Egoirr is more valuable, becaw it clearly establishes Moore as a member of the poetic cornrnunity; it is even more valuable because in time T. S. Eliot would become one of

' Pound writcs tlimbo~MuirnncMoacdMiii.Loy~tcpocg)tlvthetcmrcu~og~poeia,"a~psk defines if "poctry that is akùi to nothing but language." as opposed to "melopocian (- which rnoves by musicn) or "ixnagisxn" (- wtr«icin the fœlings of painting and sculpture arc predominant") (Pound, 57). He belicves that "logopoeia" is important because it cxpcsscs the "mind cry, more than [the] kart ccy" of "clcvcr people in &spairpn as they hover "on the brink of the precipicen (57-8). Moore's most influentid champions, and his analysis of her work arguably the most

oftcited testament to her worth as a modernist poet. Ln this review, Eliot clearly places

Moore among modernist poets of note. He writes that Pound, Joyce and Wyndham

Lewis are pets who write "living English," and then suggests that Moore too is "a living

writer" (Eliot, "Observations," 69): Whereas Pound found Moore's poetry to be

potentidly puzzling, Eliot fin& her work to be "utterly intellechial, but not abstract" (70).

Her words "never part fiom the feeling; her ideas, imageles, remain quite personal" (70).

He remarks on her "admid.de sense of form," and "sort of Latin stateliness," enforcing

the value of the intellectual quality of her work (70). Praising Moore's avoidance of

nineteenth century English poetic style, he notes that her poems instead have a

distuictively "un-Anglo-saxon charactei' (70). The implication is that Moore is writing

something distincly American, which is an equally important element of her work. It is

interesthg to note that in this review Eliot, pertiaps in response to Pound's coupling of

Moore with Mina Loy in his earlier review, is quick to differentiate the two poets. Loy

bas not "presented such a bulk of work as Miss Moore" in the Others Anthology, and he

is concerneci "whether there is a positive œwre or only a few successes" (70). In con- he concludes that Marianne Moore's poems have the "character of an œuvre"

(70).) Eliot's proclamation of Marianne Moore as an important poet in this review firmly places her witbin the modem poetic movement,

-- - -- Eliot clarifies 'living dtcr*in 1935. 'Xiving," hc writes, '?hc pet is carxying on that shugglt for the maintmance of a living Ianguage, for the maintenance of its strmgth, its subtlety, fot the prrsenration of a quality of fteling, which mmk kqt up in evey gencration; ckaâ, he povides stanQrds for those who take up the stnigglc aAcr himw(Eliot, "Introductioa" to SeIecred Pamr,6). An 'am'rcfen to cttative artistic wwks which can be considerd collectively. In this contcxt, Eliot is arguing that thtrc is a consistmcy in Moore's work as a whole, and thercfort it is also valuable when regardeci collcctivcly. These early reviews of Moore's work are important, not only because of their determination to vdidate her place within the modern poetic community, but because they also establish ber as an innovator. So fkm was the support for Marianne Moore's poetry that in 192 1 ber tirst collection of work, entitled Poerns, was published by niends without her knowledge or appmval. It is an important colkction, as up to this point her work could oniy be found in periodicals or anthologies. It is also important to note tbat ail of the works in Pwrrr had alnady ban published in assorted periodicals; nothing new was included. Nevertheiess, the publication of a collection of her work would evoke a response beyond those of her supporten. Whereas Moore's experimentation with lyrical tone, rhyme and poetic fom was applauded by the likes of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, it was contentious to those wfiose poetic expectations remained rooted in the more traditionai. Whüe Moore's poetry would aid in the eventuai shiA in understanding of th boundaries of modem poetry, in the early 1920s rieaction to her work reflects the di fference in opinion bancoll~ervatives and the more awmû gorde within the literary cornmunity. These particular reviews are wncemed with whether or not Moore is writiog poetry or merely shapuig prose, and whether or not her work is of long-term value.

The Po* Debatt

The inevitable debate regarding the value of Moore's work landed within the pages of Poew Maguzine. In January of 1922, Haniet Monme pubüshed "A

Symposium on Marianne Moore" in Poeîry, chroaicling various opinions on Moore's recently published Poems. Monroe opens by offering the convictions of Moore's supporters, and then contrasting them with those of her detractors. Alîhough the

symposium should provide an objective format for discussion, Monroe's agenda is hardly

impartiai. The symposium opens with the briefest mention of H. D.'s belief in Marianne

Moore as a poet, and Yvor Winter's conviction that she is "about the best poet in this

country except for Wallace Stevens" (Monroe,208). They are quickly dismissed by

Monroe, however, as being the opinions of radicals, and hence of little vaiue. Monroe

gives more voice to Moore's more "moderate aâmirer" Winified Bryher (209).

IdentifLing Moore as a poetic Marco Polo, Monroe cites Bryher's notion that the "spirit"

in Moore's work

. .. is robust, that of a man with facts and couutries to discover and not that of a woman sewing at tapesîries. But something bas corne between the fke spirit and iîs desire-a psychological uneasiness that is expressed in îhese few perfect but static studies of a highiy evolved intellect. (209)

It is the htellectuai nature of Moore's work tbat Bryher believes makes it an important contribution to literature. Bryher adds tbat although the poems are vividly beautifid, and contain "scenes which are a joy to remember," it is the technique, and not any emotional quality. that makes it a "îriumphant book" (209).

in conaarf it is the technical aspect of Moore's works tbat distresses her detractors. Poeq's associate editor Marion Strobel compares her to a gymnast, and then derisively suggests:

Even a gymnast should have grace. If we find ourselves one of an audience in a side-show, we prefer to see the well-mwled lady in tights stand on ber head smiiingly, with a certain nonchalance, rather than grit her teeth, perspire, and make us conscious of her neck muscles. Still, we would rather not see her at dl. (2 10) The cornparison is wt flattering. Strobel believes that Moore is far too conscious of her own intelligence, and fin& it initating tbat Moore "has not leamed to write with sirnplicity" (2 10). Pearl Andelson believes that, while Moore rnay seem to resemble

Emily Dickinson, her "not hkquent obscurities. . . are more likely the result of a relentless discipline in the subtler 'ologies' and 'osopbies'" than the more "authentic mystiçism" behind Dickinson's complications (2 10). Both critics believe that poetry should be gracefiil, simple or spirituai, and wt technical, complex or intellectual.

Moore's innovative poetic technique results in poems that are difficult to comprehend.

As a result, her detractors tend to emphasize the issue of whether Moore's work can be categorized as poetry, or is in effect merely prose tbat bas been shaped.

Monroe begins her "Symposium" with the candid assertion dut poetry "is evidently a matter of individual dennition" (208). She argues that the title of Moore's work, Poem, is in fact a challenge to the standard notion of what poetry actually is, and she wishes to challenge the challenger. She cites Pearl Andelson's conviction that many selections hmMoore's Poemr are "hybrids of a flagrantly prose origin" (21 1). Monroe herself prefers to refer to Moore's works as "geometrical verse designs which fiame. . . cryptic observations," rather than acknowledge it as petry (208). She wntends that, while it is a pet's priviiege to "attempt new meüical patterns," it temains the role of the critic to estimate the validity of the process (212). Moore is a poet "tw stedy controlled by a stiffly gemetrical intellectuality" which limits her ability to produce true poetry

(2 13). She concludes that "no amount of line-patternhg can make anything but statement and argument out of many entries in this book" (2 13). Whereas Bryher and Winters praise Moore's technique most of all. Monroe resolutely dismisses it She writes that she dws not fmd "the divine shapeliness and sound-richness which Mr. Winters referred to in

his letter," but raîher fin& the

. . . brilliant array of discordant harmonies not dike those of certain ultra- modern composers, set forth in s--fonns pwly empirical even when emphasized by rhyme, fomis which impose themselves arbiîrarily upon word structure and sentence structure instead of accepting happily the limitations of the art's materials, as dl art must. (2 14)

Monroe's notions of poetry are well grounded in the traditional. In the end, she grants

that Moore has a powerful wit, but whereas Moore's supporters believe that wit is an

imporiant element of poetry, Monra claims that it is Moore's final mdoing as a pet

She writes that Moore

. . . feels immense incongruities, and the incongnllty of kr littie ego arnong them moves her art not to grandeur but to scorn. As a satinst she is at times almost sublime-what contrary devil balks her even at those moments, kmpting her art to its most inScnitable pewersities? (2 15)

Just as Strobel categorizes her as a kind of intellechml contortionist, Monroe brands .

Moore as merely a wiî, a satirist and a trickster whose "deep rrsistless humor" is "the

mon subtly corrosive destroyer of greatness" (216). in spite of her open dismissal of

Marianne Moore, however, Monroe's "Symposium on Marianne Moore" is significant in

that it considers Marianne Moore as a pet who warrants considerable critical attention,

and reveals much about the politics within the literary community of the tirne!

4 While Monroe opms her symposium with the prcmise that it will bc %thout pejudice" (Monroe,2 1O), Monroe's prejudiced estimation of Moore had ken long esfablished. Racerit professional dealings bctween the two women had ken cool at btst Although Mmdid writc several rwiews for Pwhy in 19 18, her own poctic works wcrc rcjccted by MOXKOCtwice following hcr initial publication in Poetry in the May 19 15 issue. It is clear that Moore's refùsal to accept the traditional limitations of poeüy becamc a contentious issue betwecn the tum. As Moore htrself mtcin a lctter to Monme in 191 8, "Poeny's approach to art is diffemt hmmy owa" (1 0 May 19 18, in Ine Seiected lRnns of Mariimw Moore), and Harriet Monroe's own dislike of experimental poctry was widely biawn. "Poetry," she would later writt, Reviews by T. S. Eliot and WiWm Carlos Willirms

The attention that Moore received fbm important literary figures such as Pound,

Eliot, and even Monroe, proves that people took her quite senously as a poa.

Consequently, discussion of Moore's work expandeci into a broader range of litîie poetry

magazines. Subsequent reviewers continue to debate the same issues raised in Monroe's

symposium, such as the iatellecnial versus emotiaaal value of her poetry, its difficuity,

and whether or not it couid be considered poetry. But it is the continuous support that

Moore receives hmtwo icons of modernism, T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams,

that firmly establishes Moore as an important modernist poet. So important are their

reviews of Moore's work, that they am almost always cited as testaments of her worth as a modernist poet.

A highly influentid review of Marianne Moore's work is one written by Wiiiiam

Carlos Williams in the May 1925 issue of The Dial. Whereas Moore's detractors criticize her for her technieal appmach to poeûy, this approach is precisely why Wiliams values her work. Williams opens his review by Myestablishing Moore's place within the Modemist poetic movement. As do many others, Williams also acknowledges that

Moore's work is "ody with difficuity discemeâ," and that the reader's "whole preconceived scheme of vaiues" WUbe "ruined" (Williams, ''Marianne Moore," 393); yet he adds that

. . . this is exactly what he should see, a break through aü preconceptions of poetic form and mood and pace, a flaw, a crack in the bowl. It is this that one means when he says destmction and creation are simultaneous. . .

"is an art. Rsody is a science" (Monroe, Pm,286). Undoubtedly as a hsult of their differcnces, Marianne Moore did not submit pocms to Poew again wtil 1932 (Elten W~lliams,155). Miss Moore, using the same material as al1 the others before her, cornes at it so effectively at a new angle as to throw out of fashion the classical- conventionai poetry to which one is used and puts her own and that about her in its place. (393)

Williams' discussion of Moore's poetic process is teeming with his conceptions of how the visual arts, with their geometric mots, relate to the grammatical mots of poeûy. He writes that

A course in mathematics would not be wasted on a pet, or a reader of poetry, if he remembered no more from it than the geometric principle of the intersection of loci: hmail angles lines converging and crossing established points. He might carry it merand say in his imagination that apprehension perforates at places, thugh to understanding -as white is at the intersection of blue and green and yellow and red. It is this white Ligbt that is the background of al1 good woric. (394) in the same manner, Williams believes îbat modern poetry should also draw the reader to recognîze wt only the fiusion, but the medium through which the statement is being made. Good modem poeûy, according to Williams, is not hgmetary or neurotic as some determine, but is "a multiplication of impulses that by their several flights, crossing at dl eccentric angles, mighî enlighten" (394).

As with Pound, most of these thoughts reflect his own general ideas on modern poetry, however, rather than specific elements of Moore's work. Regarding Moore's work, he admires its "rapidity of movement," "cleanliness, lack of cernent, clarity, gentleness" (395). The subject is removed fiom the poetry entirely; words are "separated out by science," aod "treated with acid" (399). Her work engeiders "aesthetic pleasure. . . where pure craftsmanship joins hard surfacres slillfidiy" (397). As a result, her procns leaves no "sentiment. . . everything is in the style" (400). It is her "iechnical exceilence" that he appreciates most. Williams sees Moore's woric as nm,innovative and thoroughly in keeping with his sense of what is modem.

While Williams' understanding and explication of Moore's work is corn prehensive, the adjectives De selects to describe her poetic technique simultaneously reflect his unease with her gender. Although 6rm in his belief that her procedure is purely scientific, his muent use of the words Iïke "clean" also implies oomething more domestic, *le "gentle" suggests ferninine. 'Without effort," he adds, "Miss Moore encouuters the &airs which concem her as one would nanirally in reading or upon a walk outdoors" (397). In spite of his efforts to establish Moore as an innovative member of the modem movernent these rernarks, especiiaily when read in isolation, separate her by both gender and class. Moreover, he refers to her poeüy as a "brittle, highly set off porcelain garden," which fivther dudes to the ferninine, and even spinsterly qualities in its author (395-6). Certainly, one would not refer to îhe work of a man as "brittie." It may seem curious that he should choose to compare her to Emily Dickinson; yet, while there are defiaite differences between Dickinson and Moore, the= are obvious similarities. Both women are socially marginaiized, both use an obsessively restrictive metrical form and peculiar diction, and both seem to select odd creatures to siguifi themselves. There are also obvious similarities in the way they are perceived by audiences. Stiil, in a review that intends to establish Moore as modem and innovative, the comparison to a nineteenth century pet is odd. There is a crack in Williams' praise of Moore's technique, out of which tensions with respect to her gender seem to trickle.

Still, in spite of this discornfort, Williams obviously regards Marianne Moore as an important modemist poet because of her innovations, and these elements hmhis review continue to be cited to this &y. However, wben many of Williams' words are quoted outside of theu original context, his uneasiness with her gender becomes more apparent.

Two discussions of Moore's work by T. S. Eliot are even more important in establishing Moore within the modemist community. Eliot's 1923 Dia1 review of

Moore's Poem and Mwiage, and his thorough Introduction to her 1935 Selected Pwm are both valuable readings of her work which are still fkquently referred to taday. Both reviews focus on the importance of Moore's innovative technique, and on the long-term value of her poems. Eliot opens bis I 923 DiaI review by asserting Moore's position within the modemist canoa He writes:

1 have read Miss Moore's poems a gdmany times, and always with exactly the same pleasure, and satisfaction in something quite definite and solid. . . 1 can only, at the moment, think of five contemporary poets- English, Irish, American, French and German-dose work excites me as much as, or more. ("Marianne Moore," 594)

Eliot irnmediately ascribes a sense of long tenn value to Moore's wo* that has not as yet been expressed by any other critic. Of her oft perceived difficulty, he argues that her poetry "cm only please a very small number of people," ascrïbing a sense of exclusivity to Moore's work (595). He praises her language as "peculiar and briiîiant" and not

"aristocratie" at dl, but simply the "curious jargon pduced in America by universal university educatioq" as weli as her ability to juxtapose the "uneasy language of stereotypes" hmvarious social contexts with "impeccable ski11 into her pattern9*(595-

6). He admires her use of "an almot primitive simplicity of phrase" (595). Finally, he applauds her "quite new rhyth~"calling it "the most vaiuable thing" about her work, noting that Moore's poems always read very weil aloud (595). It is the combination of these three elements, rhythm, language and pbrase, which he believes results in the superiority of her poems over those of her imitators. He adds that what her imitators

cannot duplicate are "the swift dissolving images,'' -cent phraseology, and unique

characterization of animals within her poems (296). It is Marianne Moore's innovative

poetic technique that makes ber a unique talent. It is hard to read Eliot's critique as

anything other than a compliment to Moore's ability, and an assertion of her place at the

forefiont of the modern petic community.

At tbe end of his 1923 review, Eliot extends wbthe calls "one final and

'magni ficent' compliment," that

Miss Moore's poetry is as *' feminine' as Christioa Rosetîi's, one never forgets tbat it is written by a woman; but with both one never thinks of this particularity as anything but a positive virtue. (597)

It is an intriguing comment, as it is difficult to disceni what exactly Eliot means by

"feniinine," or what induces him to bring it up at all. Although Eliot suggests that Moore

writes with the seosibility and style of a modernist, he simultaneously places her outside

of the very same tradition. His assertion that ferninine writing can be a "positive virtue"

is curiously defensive. Is he implying that generally it is mi? If it is his intention to

place Moore within the same tradition of the masculine Modemist writer, he fdsshort

with this comment. Furthemore, it is odd that he should choose to parallel her with a

nineteenth-century English poet like Christina Rossetti, considering that they have little

in common apart hmgender.s Eliot had praised Moore in 1918 for her avoidance of

nineteenth-century Engiish poetic style. If Eliot's intention with this review is to cornphnent Moore, this finai comment inadvertently separates her hmother male

5 Typically, if critics allied Mooh with any pet, it was with Emily Dickinson; shc is almost never cornparcd to a male pet by rcvicwcrs. modemists, and even hmother fernale poets of the the! Nevertheless, Eliot's article is

sti11 important in that it establishes Moore's piace within the Modernist community.

Eliot's introduction to Moore's 193 5 Selecied Poemr is probably the most

fiequently mentioned discussion of Moore. Eliot opens his introduction by stressing the

exclusivity of Moore's work. He notes that "the genuineness of poetry is something

whicb . . only a small number of contemporary readen can recognise" (5). Eliot writes

that "gemineness is a more important thing to recwse in a contemporary than

greainess," because it distinguishes between a pet's "fiinction while living and his

function when dead" (6): Marianne Moore is important because she bas "done the

language some senrice" (6). He proclaims

My conviction, for what it is worth, bas remained unchanged for the last fourteen y=: that Miss Moore's poems form part of the small body of durable poetry written in ouf tirne; of that srnail body of writings, amng what passes for poetq, in which an original snisibility and alert intelligence and deep feeling have been engaged in maintaining the life of the Englîsh language. (1 2)

The confidence Eliot expresses in both Moore's ability and lasting importance as a pet is

so powerfid that this passage is still one of the most ott-cited testaments to her worth as a

Pt-

Eliot also &es a concerted effort to establish Moore as an "individual talent"

withthe "tradition" of poetry.' First of di, Eliot separates Moore hmother modemist

- 6 Nancy K. Gish providcs a irsetiil analysis of Eliot's 'difficulty' with most other women writm in The Gender ofModernUm (Scott, lm). She notes thpt Moore was one of îhc few women pocts that Eliot secmeci to endorse complctcly. 'Sec NO* 1. Eliot is alone in deçcrib'ing Moore as traditional. In fehe gas Myagainst what hcr htroctors. including Harrid Monroe, would assert. in his cssay "Tradition and the individual Talcn~"Eliot stresses the need for al1 pocts to be both compared and contrastcd to those fbm the pst He writcs that thc artist, while striving to crratc somcthing new must "be awve also that hc must kvitably be jubgcd by the poets, saying that she has "no immediate poetic derivations" (6). He observes that she has "saîurated her mind in the perfections of prose, in its precision rather than its purple; and to have found her rhythm, her poetry, her appreciation of the individual word, for herselt7' (7). Having established Moore as a contemporary individual talent, Eliot then places Moore among the traditionai. This is quite distinct hmHarriet Monroe's effort to limit Moore by claiming she went against tradition. By aligning Moore with poetic tradition, Eliot finthet endorses Mme's importance. He notes how Moore, derthan emulating other modemists, bas returned to the mots of poetic tradition and created something new hmthem. He writes that "Miss Moore's poeüy, or most of it, might be classified as 'descriptive' rather than 'lyrical' or 'dramatic'" but should not be confùsed with imagism (8). Unlike imagism, Moore's work has "a very wide spread of association" (9). Descriptive poeûy, he writes. although "dated to a period, and to be condemned thereby. . .is really one of the permanent modes of expression" (8).

Furthemore, he notes that unlike many contemporary poets, Moore does not restrict herself to the realm of fiee verse, and her particular use of rhyme renders her pms

"exact, and sometMes complicated, formai patterns. . . [which] move with the elegance of a minuet" (1 0). "Of the Iighr rhyme," he writes, "Miss Moore is the greatest Living master. and indeed she is the fht,so far as 1 bow, who bas investigated its possibilities"

(1 l)? Finally, he discloses that often in contempomy verse there is standards of the past- .. lne existing monmmts form an iddorder Ynong thcmselves, which is modified by the introduction of ncw (the dlyncw) work of art amorig tbemw(Eliot, Sefected Essqyj, 15). Light, in this contex& docs mtmean trivial. Eliot writes tbat "the tcndcncy of somc of the best contemporary pocîry is of coinsc to dispcrifc with chyme rihogcdwr, but somc of those who do use it have used it hmand there to rrrsilc a paÉteni in direct contrast widi the sense and int.tnial rhyming pattcm. to give a grcattr ùrtricacy. .. This rfiymt. . .may be either hcavy or light-that is to say cithtr hecNier or fighter than the othcr pattern. The two W, heavy and light, have doubtlcss différent uses which itmain to ôe explorrd" (Eliot, Introduction to Seieczed Pm,10- 11). . . . either an excess or a defect of technical attention. The former appears in an emphasis upon words rather than things. and the latter in an emphasis upon things and an indifference to words. In eithcr case, the poem is fonnless. ( 1 1)

Moore, in contrast, achieves a balance between "words" and "things," resulting in a

"precise fitness of form and matter" (1 1).

Eliot's support of Moore is not entirely cornfortable, however. As in his Diaf review of 1923, there are moments where his @se seems to falter. While he praises her technique, he also points out that the lack of obvious emotion within her work

. . . is often something that the majotity will cal1 fkigid; for feeiing in one's way, however ktensely, is Wely to look lilce fkigidity to those who can only feel in accepted ways. (9)

The wording is somewhat dortunaie, considering Moore's age and marital status. The fact that he uses '%gidn twice in one sentence is even more so. It is as if Eliot realizes the implications of the tenn, and is stumbling on the retraction. Moore's restraint, he adds, often mistaken for "fiigidity," "shows itself in the conml that makes possible the fusion of the ironic-conversationai and the hi&-rhetorical" (9). Eliot sees Moore's restraint as an integral part of ber artistic process; but it is somethiag that also makes him uncornfortable. As with Wiiiiams. Moore's technique gives rise to discornfort regarding her gender. Finally, Eliot reveais a certain apprehension with the selection within the volume itself Eliot's closing comment to the Introduction is as follows:

The original suggestion was thai 1 should make a selection, hmboth previously published and more recent poems. But Miss Moore exercised her own rights of proscription nfst, so drastically, that 1 have been concerned to preserve rather than abate. 1 have therefore hardly done more than to settle the order of the contents. This book contains all that Miss Moore was wiiling to reprint hmtbe volume Observations (The Dia1 Press, New York, 1924), together 4th the poems written since that date that she is willing to publish. (12)

The implications are numerous. 1s Eliot tying to give Moore absolute credit for a volume welldone in refishg to claim responsibility for its selection or order, or is he trying to ensure that he will not be held responsible for weaknesw that he is not willing to divulge in this context? 1s he admirùig the strength of her convictions, or cnticiPag her resistance to publishuig any more of her wodc? b his praise exteadmg beyond what she is willing to publish, to include tbat *ch she is not? 1s he at al1 resentfbl that he had not more say beyond the ordering? It's difficult to say. What it does do, however, is place even more emphasis on Moore's habit of holding back-a quality that could be related to the "nigidity" he comments on earlier in the review. Nevettheless. the balance of Eliot's introduction is so positive that it remah a powerttl testament to Moore's worth as a poet.

The Struggles of Othcr Reviewcm

in spite of demeci attempts by the likes of Eliot and Williams to chri& Moore's creations, reviewers still sbuggle with the difficulty they find in reading and understanding Moore's work While Moore's work is clearly regardeci by her early reviewers as an example of good modemkt poetry, it is good mainly because of her technique. Eventually, Moore's reputation as a sdace observer limits her hmking seen as a genius or a great poet. Cntics extol her poetry as crafted, cool and intellectual, and not as ambitious, which discloses the perception that Mwre is more an eccentric than a great poet. The focus on the eccentricities of Moore's work, and of Moore herself, continues in later reviews. For example, the notion that Moore as a writer was more

intellectual than emotional is reflected in Glenway Wescott's January 1925 Dia1 review ,

and Louis Gilmore's brief but pertinent June 1925 review in The Duuble Dealer.

Wescotî refers to Moore's writing as "the product of a novel intelligence, a strange

sensibility, a unique scholarshipn (Wescott, 2). Gilmore notes that he has difficulty with

the fact that Moore's poems are so unemotional, arguiag that her work is 'bo cool, too

cerebral, too objective" (Gilmore, 200). Yet other critics tirmly believe that Moore is a

truly modem poet because she is an unemotional, detached observer of things. Rolfe

Humphries, for example, in his 1924 review of Observatioms writes that Moore

. . . gives way to no ecstasy; she knows better. She is hart&and the world is not fluent. . . . Such art is exninently just to our era, and as good as we deserve. We Live, these last few years, in a time of rebellion grown wise, of rebellion corne into îhe house. Why should our pets Wear the smell of the ground? (Humphries, 17)

For many, to be modem is to be resewed and detached fiom one's subjects, and Moore's

work is ciearly exemplary of what modem poetxy should be. Her technique is what is

most important Still, early reviews of Moore's work have difficulty grappling with the

intellectuai qualities of Moore's work and its apparent lack of emotional content. As

Louis Gilmore writes in 1925, "Miss Moore is a poet's poet" (200). The problem witb

king labeled a "poet's poetn is that it inhibits acceptance by the public.

In fact, by casting Moore as an inteliectuai poet, critics could be excused hm having to explicate ber at ail, Matthew Josephson, in his January 1923 Broom review of

Moore, argues that she is "too difficult to quote," and is best read in her longer poems, thereby avoiding the need to discuss specifics of her work (138). Dorothy Emerson, in her 1935 review of Selected Poems in Schlastic, determines that "only those who have a taste for the unusual in poetry wül Lice Moore's] work," and advises het audience to keep a dictionary handy (1 1). Proponents of Moore would continue to argue, however, that while her work cari be perceived as obscure, it is a vital product of her poetic approach and technique. For example, Yvor Wmters, in his April 1925 review of

Observations in Poetry, comments that Moore's habit of ending a iine in the middle of a word bas antagonized some of her readers, but daims that this "contributes to the accuracy of the relationship between the rhythm and its meanhg content," and is "an inevitable part of the eIaborate but exact musical schemewthat Moore employs (434).

Morton Dauwen Zabel, in his 1936 review of Moore's &Iected Poemr, goes into particular detail to pmve that Moore's poerns are not at all difficult to discern, and only require readers to adjust their approach to jmetry. He writes that

Cohnting Miss Moore's poems. . . calls for a renovation not oniy to the attention, but of one's habits, definitions, and prejudices; and of what these have done to one's understanding of the words, rhythms, and sentences of poetry . (336)

Moore, he writes, is no "illusionist," but a "literalist of the imagination," and the

"bdities of aiiegory" should be discardeci (326,327,329). Readers must leam to overcome the difficulty of Moore's work by adjusting their understanding of what poetry is. This notion is echoed in the Times Literm Supplement's review of Jan- 18, 1936, which concludes that "there is no way of reading Miss Mmre short of leaming to play her cnielly difficult instrument" ("Irinovators in Poetry Today," 52). Poet May Lewis compares Moore's work to "a thomy thicket, difficult to penetrate," but she reassures the reader that as he "mounts the inteiiectual structure he will hd, suddenly, a door to emotion flung open" (48). SU, few reviewers would offer readers clear guidance on how to penetrate Moore's poetry to find the hidden qualities within. They would instead

uicreasingly defer discussion to things other than specifics about Moore's poetry.

A Cult of Persoarlity?

An interesting trend begins to show in the later, more maiastrram features on

Moore following her publication in 1935 of Selected Poemr. There is a tendency for the

reviewer to make casual reference to Moore's persoIlitlifY, hoping, perfiaps, that her

eccentric personality can account for the eccentricities of her poetry. Following the

publication of her Selected Pwnis in 1935, Moore won numemus honors and awards,

including the Pulitzer in 1952. As a resuit, Moore began to be mentioned fkquently by

more mainstream publications, such as Time, Life Maguzine and Newsweek. Her poetic obscurity became a given, and rather than attempt to explicate it for the public, articles

focused more on her idiosyncrasies than ber poetic abilities. For example, Dorothy

Emerson opens her 1935 Scholmtic review of Moore's Sèiected Poemr not with discussion of Moore's literary inauences, but with an overview of her fascination with

"baseball, wildlife, tennis [and] sailing," d her occupation as a librarian (1 1).

Emerson's article seems to mark a shift from the poet-cntic's approach to Moore as a

"pet's pet,"to the more popular publications*attempts to transform her into a popular figure. NewsweeA' 195 1 review of Collected Poem calls Moore the "Best Living Poet," but does littie to establish why that is. They triviaiize her poerns, noting that they are really only "dennitions," "encyclopedia articles," or ucoilections of quotations" that

Moore has extracted hmconversations or even "remarks overbeard at a circus" (70).

For the most part, the article is little more than a biography of h(iooreyand does not attempt to demonstrate how readily comprehended her work actually is. Moore is transfomed fiom poet to personality-but the personality that begins to emerge by the

1950s is that of an elderly spinster.

Li/e Magaine accompanied Moore to the Bronx Zoo in 1953 to photograph

Moore as she "cdls on some animals she often writes about" (202-207). Moore is described as a

. . .65-year old spinster who iives in Brooklyn, wears wide stmw hats, is interested in everything hmmails to steamrollers and is, in the opinion of many literary critics, the £inest living American poet. (202)

The subjects of her famous works, "To a Sa"and "To a Steamroller," are transfomed into hobbies. Brief mention is made of her poetry and her 1952 Pulitzer prize, but for the most part reviewers focus on her personai quirks. Moore is photograpbed at the zoo with her "Literary acquaintances" (monkeys, swans, elepbant, cockatws and zebras), and then in her home iaspecting milk boale due-dates, looking at her featber collection, holding a baseball bat, and eating an ice crearn cone. Even Time Magaine's review of Moore's

Collected Poents in 195 1 opens by infoming us that "Moore is a spinster who has Lived on the same quiet street in Brooklyn for morc than 20 years" (1 12). As for her poems, the Time reviewer notes that she spends her time in museums, or as an "amchair explorer," collecting for her "poetic garden" (1 12).

These reviews demonstrate that it is simpler for a reviewer who finds Mwre difficult to explicate, or even penetrate, to concentrate on other things that may interest a common reader, however, Moore's work is simultaneously ûivialized in this triviaiization of her personality. It is important to mention that this matment of Moore's work is not the same as Hamet Monroe's earlier dismissal. Monroe rejects Moore's work because it does not comply with her notion of poetic tradition; these subsequent reviewers appear to be trivialking Moore's poeûy because they do not refer to it, most

Likely because they do not understand it.

Deference to T. S. Eliot

There is an oveNvhelming trend in later reviews to defer to William Carlos

Wiifiams' 1925 Did article on Moore, and to a fàr greater extent, T. S. Eliot's introduction to Selecred Pwnrs. For example, Arthur Coon of Froniier adMidland

*tes that

Few readers of this magazine will neeâ or care for extended comment upon the work of Marianne Moore, whose poetry is already so weil known, and so firmiy established that T. S. Eliot's dictum (in the inîroduction he has contributecl) is Likely to pass unchalienged: that 'Miss Moore's poems form a part of the small body of durable poetry wrirten in out tirne.' (Coon, 324)

Coon's reference to Eliot, in fact, accounts for more than half of the review. Eliot becomes the guide to reading and understanding Moore. Peter Monroe Jackson of ïk

New York Times Book Rewiew fkquently refers to Eliot in his Apnl28, 1935 review of

Selected Poem, as if his readers need know that "Mr. Eliot is certain of Miss Moore's genuine contribution to poetry," or that "Mr. Eliot says the trïviality is in the poems"

(Jackson, 2,). Zakl =fers to Eliot's notion of Moore as maintainhg the "life of the

English language"; even the pet-critic May Lewis informs her readers that for a "critical or technical estimation" of Moore's art, they shouid rdEliot's Introduction (Lewis, 48).

This deference to Eliot does not imply that (excluding Arthur Coon) these critics do not offer their own reasonable estimations of Moore's technique; but it does reveai a prevalent insecurity in kirunderstanding of Moore's work, and thus their need to defer

to Eliot for support.

While not ail reviewers give way to Eliot's interpretation of Moore's wo*

almost everyone brings it up. The Times Lit- Supplement, for example, writes that

Mt. Eliot does something in his approach to provide the comrnon reader with an appmach, but is rnainly engaged in offering tribute. . . To be candid, he does not convince us that his admiration of Moore's poetry bas been based on a susicientiy exact apprehension of its principles. . . Ur. Eliot is mistaken, we beliwe, in clPiming that the cosmopolitan aestheticism her work embodies is for the life of our language. ("hovators in Poetry Taday," 52)

In spite of his attempt to clarify Moore's work, Eliot's efforts are not always appreciated.

But then, Eliot himself seems to shimble at times in his praise of Moore. StilI, even

reviewers who do not agree with Eliot's assessment of Moore fecl obliged to include him

in theu review.

lsolated citations hmT. S. Eliot's discussions on Moore continue and seem to

increase in the forties and mes. Mary Colum, for example, in her 194 1 review of Wh

Are Yems in the New York Times Book Review refers to Eliot's assessment as the first to

charge Moore with the "quality of genuineness," and Horace Gregory in &is 1944 review

in Sewanee Review uses "Mr. T. S. Eliot's phrase. . . 'Light rhymes'" (Colum, 20;

Gregory, 584). Gregory, however, does wt supply Eliot's dennition of "light ibyme,"

and without this, his review diminishes Moore's efforts. Eliot's term "durable" shows up

in Kenneth Burke's 1942 review of What Are Years, and in Wallace Fowlie's 1952 review of Collecied Poem. Eliot's approach to Moore, then, ovewhelms cnticism and continues to guide critics even today.

Inevitably, this deference to Eliot limiîs th tenns by which Moore's work is described. As a mult, the potential worh of Moore as a poet is restricted to iall< of her

quality in terrns of wbat he deemed important; and clearly both Eliot and Wiliiams praise

Moore's technique-the attention she pays to minute detail and her capacity as aa

observer of things.I0 Nevertheless, the term that they use to describe what they deem an

important aspect of the modem poetic process would eventuaily be rendered by other

critics as a meam of simplifjhg &etwork. Maore is perceived to be so difficult tbaî it is

easier to describe her as a su&ice poet or an ob~erv~onist;her poems are then

explained as king non-anaiytical views of the world. Yvor Winters calls Moore a

"master of minutiae of style," dose "verses are as packed with îhought as with sound"

(Winters, 40; 44). Her presentaîion of animais is equaily controlled, she scnituiizes

everything, be it animals, objects and ideas, with a "painfiilly sharp observation"

(Winters, 43). This is reitetated in Stanley Kunitz's 194 1 review of CYliat Are Yeors in

Poetiy, as he praises Moore for her "eXaCfLless" and "microscopie patience of the eye"

(Kunitz, 96). Lloyd Frankenburg, in his November 194 1 Decision review etesthat

Moore reproduces ''dazziing surfaces witb exquisite accuracies" (Frankenburg, 115).

R P. Blackmur's 1945 review of Nevertheless in Kenyon Review writes of how by

"cultivating the minute," Moore can produce "major moral perception" (Blackmur,

342-3).

It becomes simpler for many to consider Moore as preoccupied with surfaces and objects of sense expenences. Moore is thus regarded as a poet of trivialities, raîher than a

'O Moore's pmfcrnîe for the tcrm obsQNQti011~for hcr poems ir long-srudin& and nd thought by many to be a nud to T. S. Eliot's Pmfiock cmd aber Obsemraionr. In fkt, in a 7 July 192 1 lettcr to Bryhcr, bfoore wrote, "1 should have used Obs~ionr... as a titlc," for hcr 192 1 Pwm; ha 19% volume of poctry would adopt that title. pet who deals with the larger issues of her tirne. This is not a completely new idea In

his review of Marianne Moore's Poems in Boom in January 1923, Matthew Josephson

writes thaî Moore's work is "poignant," but dtimately her ucnticisms lead to no great

matter" (Josephson, 138-9). In 1926, Gorham Munson writes that Moore's achievement

is in style and design, which may make her an amazing minor pet, but not a major one.

She dws not wurite in the scope he believes is necessary for a major pet. He calls her a

"comptent observer," and notes that the Wonalmagnificence" of her poetry results in something "perfect and narrow," but that it does not give the "complete presentation of

States of being" that he believes a great poet must achieve (Mutlson, 54-5). He adds that, while her "method of forming her poetic conceptions" (using Ietters, reports and magazines, for example) is "interesthg,"a "great poet. . .could not be content with records as his sources. . . nor could he make a strictly esthetic effect his entire aim and end" (56). Consequently. Munson's review intentiody beiïttles Moore's work.

The Notorious Vi

It is significaat that the focus on Moore's attention to minutiae eventually becomes inextricably linked to her gender in later reviews. in his 1945 review in

Sewanee Review, for example, Demis Devlin notes that the "@ce and limits of Moore's work. . . is to make a delighting pattern . . of superticid aspects of things and ideas"

(465). He believes thaî ritaders will experience Moore as "a woman who is at home piously among things that have contour and colour," and can render them all into

"household gods" (465). Men, then, write out of heroic occasions, while women write about the everyday. It is possible to interpret the critical focus on Moore's attention to detail as covering up an uneasiness reviewers seem to experîence with Moore's gender,

and especially her seximiity-or lack thereof.

Marianne Moore was a notorious virgin, whose deeply religious conviction was

widely known. The tension that this seems to have caused her reviewers is evident early

on' ' Matthew Josephson, for example, praises Moore because, unlike other Amencan

women pets such as Amy Loweli and Gertrude Stein, who "have no shame and have no

pride," Moore is a "rebuke to our heedless womanhd" because of ber "humiiity that

goes with knowledge," and "pride thai goes with sensib'ity" (138). Unlike the

exaggerated emotions of the other women, Josephson hdsthat Moore's emotions are

"calcined to a thin ash. . . . There is no sob, no throwing back of the hait with disheveled

han&. There is great mystery and great tranquillity" (138). To critics like Josephson,

Marianne Moore is a pleasantly genteel and IadyIike contrast to her female poetic peers.

The lack of obvious emotion within her poetry is seen as a reflection of Moore herself,

and terms such as "fkigid," used by T. S. Eliot in 1923, begin to surface in reviews. R P.

Blaclunur, discussing Moore's poem "Mamage," fin& it odd that there is "no element of

sex or iust" in the poem; wrcan it be found in any of her poetry, adding that "no poet has

been so chastew("The Method of Marianne Moore," 85). John Sweeny, in his 1943

review in Furioso, also writes that an important element in Moore's expression is her

"tone of modest, self-reliant finmess" (41). Randall Jarrell, in his 1942 review of ht

II Tirnothy Moms, in Bewming Guwnical in Americun Po-, commenthg on certain criticai hsponx to Moore's poem "Marriage," notes tht horizon ofexpcctations that pxtcd a vllgin pet writing of rnaniage in the 1930s wcrc in aint unavoidably colored for dercadcrs, by a sense of the inadcquacy, the 'poseur' quality, of any appoach that shc might have to scxuality" (Morris, 91). nit assumption was, of course, that a notorious virgin poct mch as Moore could biow nothuig about the nature of sexuality. This, he believes, would affect most rcadhgs of Moore. Are Years, provocatively entitled "The Humble Animal," wntes that Moore "has more restraint in her little fmger than the rest of the New England mdition put together"

(409).12 Oddly, he adds tbat she is Me "one of those eccentrics Virginia Woolf writes about-naturai, excessive and magnificent" (409). Furthemore, Jarre11 sees Moore "in al1 her protective creatures," as another "armored animaln herse1f (409). Blackmur notes that Moore's "expression of a cultivated distaste" is appealing, as it aUows her to stand aside and present her readers with "the id& of her subjects ("The Method of Marianne

Moore," 85). Each of these cntics directs attention to Moore's apparent remoteness fiom her readers, with the intention of bestowing a compliment; but instead, it ultimately denies her ability to engage readers.

There is dso a frequent miteration of William Carlos Williams' 1925 perception of Moore "acidcleaning" the language when she composes her poetry; ironically, however, it is Williams' words that are "separateci out." The notion that Moore uses a scientific process in creating her work is gone, and only the image of her "cleaningn is lefi behind. Moore is no longer holding a beaker fidl of acid, but a feather duster. One of the most darnaging comments about Marianne Moore's domesticity cornes fiom Stadey

Kunit. In an dortunate echoing of Williams, he writes that

The face of Miss Moore's poetry is serene. Shall we look into her mind for signs of travail? The mind of Miss Moore is astonishingiy clean. Cluttered, to be sure, like your grandmother's attic; but with everything dusted and in place, labeleâ, catalogueci, usable. The tensions are in the things themselves. (98)

Although his intent is to praise Moore, it is back-handed praise at best. Williams'

l2 Othcr provocative titles: J. L. Swœny's 1943 "Burd-Aione," Hugh Kenner's 1954 "Supremc in Hm Abnormality," and John Ciardi's 1954 "Strictncss and Fait,." original intention appears to have been to dly Moore's poetic process with a scientific

one, and thereby a modem one. But here, the notion of hard scientific process bas been

removed, and replaced by a domestic one. Even worse, perhaps, is that her mind is

descnbed as "clean" hem, while dlbeing kept filied up, not even like a rnuseum, but

like an old woman's cluttered attic. The cornparison on one band portrays Moore as an

intellectual dose mind is fillecl with poetic matenal. On the other band, a museum is a

never really laves the comfort of home." Either way, Moore is portrayed wt as an

explorer of the new, but as everyone's elderly spioster aunt, living alone arnongst her

old-fashioned things.

The potentid for ridicule &ai Kunitz's portraya1 of Mwre yields is picked up by

John Updike. in a scathing commentary on Moore in the January 1957 issue of The New

YorAer, he criticizes Moore's propensity for quotaîion and notation; he qui-

. . . Miss Moore employs her notes with a certain sense of housekeeping; the effect of her poetry is that of a spanking-clean, well-swept attic, and, naturally, if the attic is to stay tidy, there must exist a storeroom, under the eaves, where she can jumble the bulkier objects: the Webster's New intemationai Dictionary 's definition of "wen'tie-trap'." with a pretty engraving; the abridged texts of two sports colrmios by Arthur Daley (New York Times, March 3, 1952 and March 11. 1955); a drawing hm the hand of Giulio Gorne~a Spanish schwl child age 6; aad the full text of "Sentiment Ardeur." Miss Moore is lavishly hospitable to persons as well as things. . .(Updike, 38)

His condemnation of Moore is a near exact reworkhg of Kunitz's 194 1 Poehy review.

" The notion of Moore as a Mof 'muscm poct* or an 'armchair explorer*dso limits hcr, anâ by the 1 950s, is surprisingly widespFwd Many rcviewers in more mainstrcam magazhs had describecl how she pases her tirne roarning muserims, or dcscribed hcr as an "armchair explorer," collecting for hcr -tic garden" (Time 58:24, 10 Dec«nber 195 1, 1 12). What is significant is that the criticism goes beyond merely his thoughts on her poetry notations. Updike subscribes to an extreme interpretation of the stereotypes of Moore that were brewing as early as 1925, and intensifjing in mainStream publications of the

1960s. Unlike Kunitz's, Updike's view of Moore's mental attic fin& it to be devoid of anything important Plenty of criticai response to Moore in the 1960s reflects Updike's obvious disdain for MOOR. in 1963 Robert Bly writes that Moore's work "represents a masure-house-a ferninine one. The objects in the poem are fia%ments, amexed and the poem is a parlor fùll of knickknacks carefùily arra~lged.. . . A poem is conceived as an exercise in propriety" (Bly, 11). It is not unusual for young-up-and coming critics to take a revisionkt approach to their elders, and both articles by UpdiLe and Bly are criticking

Moore dong with her modernist contemporaries. What is remarkable, though, is thai they both specincally ridicule her poetic technique in te- of her gender. The emphasis both writen place on Moore's domestic activities typifies the critical transformation of

Marianne Moore hma major poet to an eccentric spinster who plays with words. As

Timothy Moms put. it in 1995,

For the succeeding genemîion of critics, Moore's poetry would change slowly fiom 'part of the dlbody of durable verse' into part of the body of durable sdverse. (Becoming Canonical in American Poetry, 84)

Conclusion

in the beginning, then, reviews of Marianne Moore's work center on whether she could be considered a poet. But obvious support by such iwns of modemism as Ezra

Pound, William Carlos Williams, and T. S. Eliot, in spite of their apparent difficulties with Moore's gender, substantiate her importance to the modernist poetic movement in the 1920s and 1930s. These pet-critics, however, were her modemist contemporaries, and as a "poet's poet," Moore could be assured of their support. It is the attempt to popdarize Moore as a poet for the common reader that seems to lead to her eventual cnticai downfall- Her dificulty proves to be too much for many later cntics, who feel the need to defer to modernist cntics such as Eliot as a guide to understanding her work, or who instead focus more on ber persodty. Most damaging of aü, however, is the critical tendency to view Moore as an observer of the minute. That, in combination with the ovewhelming awareness of her "spiuster lifestyle," transfomis critical opinion to consider her only as a pet of the neat ami trivial.

In the last few decades of her life, Moore becomes largely misinterpreted, and her work virtually dmps hmthe literary canon While xnany other fedepoets hmthe modemist period would experience a criticai resurgence in the 1970s and 1980s, it has only been in the past decade that valuable Moore criticism has begun to reemerge. in fact, many of the same critics who fight hard to support other female pets snimble in their discussions of Moore. Surprisingly, even some feminist critics subscribe to the stereotype of Moore as notorious virgin. S-e J- in ber 1976 book N&d 4

Fîery Fom: Modem American Poev by Women, criticizes Moore's "spinsterly writing," whiie Betsy Erkkila, in her 1992 tex. î%e Wicked Sisters, refers to Moore as a

"fabulous fajr-tale figure" whose "well known dress-black pointed shoes, cape and tricornered Laretransformed hto the costume of a f* godmother or good witch"

(133). While it is not Erickila's intention to belittle Moore, her description reveals as much of a reliance on the stereotyped personality of Moore as the later reviews of her work Alicia Ostriker, in her 1986 book Stealing the Langwge: The Emergence of Women 's Poeîry in Americcl. takes the stereotype even Mer,arguing that the support

Moore receives &om her own contemporaries has more to do with ber king a "chaste and lady-like, self-effacing spiaster in a tricorne bat" than her actual ptry (53). She questions whether a "sexual and powerfid Marianne Moore" would have gained the same respect (53). The danger, of course, is that even these critics are presenting Moore pnmarily in terms of the image that is constructecl for her much later in Life, and not during her poetic peak in the twenties and thirties. Still, there lingers the notion that

Moore is a passive participant in the modernist movement, toletated only because of her submission to her male contemporaries.

But nme of these critics is exclusively a Moore scholar. Recent efforts by Moore scholars such as Bonnie Costello, TmMartin and Ceteste Goodridge reveal Moore to be a feminist in her own way. They demonstrate how Moore's seeming reticence was not a passive response to her male contemporaries, but rather an active intellectual choice.

Still, many generalist critics continue to subscribe to the notion tbat Moore does not tackle greater issues in her work, and that she is therefore of iittle critical value. This in turn excludes her ~omthe primary canon, and renders her a secondary modemist pet. It is arguable that the probtem may lie in our understanding of what modemism is.

Nevertheless, it is important to remember that, although the critical estimation of Moore's work bddiminished by the 1960s' she bad always held the decided support of her contemporaries within the modemist poetic movement Clearly, rhey felt tbat her poems were not trivial, but innovative, thought-provoking, and technically excellent; her work made up part of the Modernists' own poetic canon. Based on this alone, the influence of

Marianne Moore on the development of modernist poeûy should be a given. Still, many critics today continue to rely on stereotypes as a means of understanding Moore. in the

followuig chapter, this thesis wiil strive to articulate Mananne Moore's importance

within the modernist movement by showing the influence she had on her contemporaries, as evidenced by her reviews and letters, and perbps most importantly, through her work as editor of the modernist publication, The Dial. Marianne Moore Amongst the Modems: Tkc Did Y-13

Feminist critics have long grappled with the popular perception of Moore's stereotyped image as a repmssed spkter and her acceptance by male modernists. Alicia Ostriker, for example, tries to account for this in her 1986 book Steaiing the Language: The

Emergence of Wornen 's Poetry in America. She nfers to Marianne Moore as a passive participant in the rnodernist movement, tolerated only because of her submission to her male contemporaries. She asks

. . . would a sexual and powedùl Marianne Mwre have met with the respect accorded the chaste adladylike, selfeffacing spinster in a tricorne? There is no nason to think m. . . . mhe connection between the personal and sexuai self-effacement which was one source of the respect she received in elite poetic and critical circles, adthe limitations which readers have complained of in her wo* can scarcely be doubted. To advocates and critics alike, she has been the preemiaent pet of the filigmd and polished surface, who is 'unassuming' and 'unpretentious' and whose 'humiiity is vast.' (Ostriker, 534)

Osûiker's query is not completely invalid; many femaie pets hmthe modemist pend who were sexual and powerful did not receive the same level of acceptance that Moore attained. However, her perception of Moore is misguided for three reasons. Ospiker bases her perceptions of Marianne Moore on an image that was ascribed ta ber later in her life. When judging Moore's significance within the mdemist community of the twenties and thirties, it is imperahive to consider her image and actions during tbat time period. Ostriker's reading also impiicitly encourages the impression tbat Moore consciously chose to align herself only with male writers, which simultaneously isolates

Moore fiom the other female writen of her tirne, and implies that Moore did wt hdthe work of female writers to be of value. Finally, Ostriker assumes that Moore's shymss, while real, "disguiseci an equally real arrogance," and shows that Moore recogüzs "the necessary umidities and disguises" that brilliaat women would have to assume to succeed

"in a worId where literary authority is male" (Ostriker, 52). While Ostriker's argument is compelling, the rasons bebind Moore's apparently shy behaviour are more complex than a mere ploy used to gain acceptance into the wmmunity of male modernists.

Upon closer examination of her reviews and her letters, a different woman hm this shrinking spiostcr stemtype is meded. Marianne Moore emerges 6.wi the pages as an active member of the modernist community. She was not merely îrying to be one of the boys, as she actively supported modernist artists regardless of gender. While seerningly reluctant to publish, she was in fact an ambitious writer and critic. Ostriker may not be completely wmng, for in order to publish, Moore arguably had to be subversive; however, Moore's subversion is mt for the reasons that Ostriker supposes. It is more likely that Moore was subverting limitations that nesuiteci hmher religious beliefs, and perhaps even her understanding of modemism, and not hmmy limitations imposed by the male modernist community. Moore, in fact, was cornfortable criticïzing her rnale contemporaries, something which a submissive person would not do. Granted, this criticism was occasionally given in a veiled manner in her prose work, but she was never ahid to be direct in private correspondence. Finally, when Moore's deas editor of The Dial is analyzed, it becomes clear that Moore was not submissive to the male modemist community, but rather was an active participant. She clearly directed the publication after Scofield Thayer's departure, and consequently helped to influence the shape of the modemist movement itself'. Moore and ber Fcmrle Coatcmponries

Ostriker's insinuation tbat Marianne Moore was isolated fiom other women is

untrue. Moore actively promoted the rights of women; for example, she participated in a

Women's Sufnage march in February 1913, and worked with the Women Suffrage Party

of Pennsylvania in 1915 (Moleswoith, 94; 116-7). The support she gave to her female

poet pers is even more revealing- Moore had a long-standing lîteray relationship with

many wornen, but her comections to H- D., Bryher, and Elizabeth Bishop are her most

well-known. Her correspondence with Bryher and H. D., and later, Elizabeth Bishop and

Louise Crane, reveals Moore's reliance on tbis female community for support. Certainly,

there were differences in philosophies, especially with regards to their individual

sexuality, but their personai correspondence reveals what Marilyn Brownstein, in her

1990 essay on Moore in The Gender of Modernbm, refers to as a "familial relationship"

@rownstein, 325-6). A nuturing manner, similarly exhibiteci in Moore's letters with her

family, aiso operates in her correspondence with these other fedepoets, a manner

Brownstein identifies as "a nonhierarchical reporting style" (Brownstein, 326). She

would write long rambling letters to Bryher, for example, in which nicknames and other

familiar details were woven amongst discussions of their various writing projects.' Theu

Wendships were mutually supportive; for example, during the Second World War, Moore

herself assurned certain business rnatters that H. D. was unable to attend to, writing: "Let

it seem to you, dear Hilda, that this is my materid and my trouble and my indignation and

' In a 1 92 1 letter to Bryhcr, for example, Moore wrote: The p&dactyl [Moore] has often thought of shortening its hair. (it will scnd or rcad you 'The Rape of the Lock*a 6riend's burlesque dealhg with this very subjecf' (Lcttcr to Bryhcr, 23 Fcbniary 192 1, in SéIected Letters, 142). Intcrcstingly tnough, Moart, dong with fiend Mary Nearing. had writttn a play cntitled "The Rape of the hk"while in college, which included the IùK "What Monarch would not blush to have a wife with hair likc a shaving bmhn-a line which she Iater incorpoated into her pam "Marriage* (Costcllo in SIectedk~ers,142 note 12). that nothing connected with your work is weighing on me as apart eom myself" (qtd in

Brownstein, 326). This nurturing was reciprocated, as Bryher once Ioaned money to

Moore when she was in need (Brownstein, 326). Moore's letters to Bishop are

remarkably matemal, as she simultaneously supports, critiques, and encourages her

poetic efforts. In 1937, Moore wrote:

Your things have the insidiousness of creativeness, in that the after impression is stronger than the impression while reading, but you are menaced by the goodness of your mechanics. . . wet] when 1 set out to find fadt with you, there are so many excellences in your mechanics that 1 seem to be commendiag you instead. (Letter to Bishop, 7 March 1937)~

Moore's "matemal mentoring" of Bishop was "an arrangement of mutual benefit. . .

mirrored in Bishop's responses" (Brownstein, 326).

Moore's public relationship with these women was equally supportive. While

H. D. and Moore differed in many respects (Moore, for example, did not share if. D. 's penchant for psychoanalysis), they still shared and expressed clear admiraîion for each other. Recall nom Chapter 1 that H. D.3 early review of Moore arguably helped to fûrther Moore's career, as did her involvement in the publication of Moore's 192 1

Poems. This support was reciprocated. According to Charles Molesworth, upun acceptance of the editorship of The Diaf Moore quickly interceded on behalf of H. D. and

Bryher to be published therein (2 14). Marianne Moore's 1923 review of H. D.3 Hymen in Broom was equally valuable for the other's advancement. She wrote:

Talk of weapons and the tendency to match one's intellechial and emotiod vigour with the violence of nature give a martial, and appmntly masculine tone to such writing's as H. D.3, the more so that women are

Unles othcrwisc notai, al1 refmccs to Marianne Moore's latcrs arc fiom trie SeiecledCRtters of Mm-unne Moore. eds. Bonnie Costcllo, Celeste Goodridge, d Cristanne Miller. New York AlWA. Knopf, 1997. regarded as belonging necessarily to either of two classes-that of the intellectual ike lance or that of the etemally sleeping beauty, effortless yet effective in the indestructible lhnestone keep of domesticity. Woman tends unconsciously to be the aesthetic nom of intellectual home life and preeminently in the case of H. D., we have the intellectual, social woman, non-public and 'ferninine.' There is, however, a comection between weapons and beauty. Cowardice and beauty are at swords* points and in H. D.3 work, suggested by the absence of subterfiige, cowardice and ambition to dominate by brute force, we have heroics which do not confise transcendeme with domination and which in their indestnictibleness are the core of tranquility and of intellectual equilibrium. ("Hymen," Compfete Prose, 82)

Moore specifically connects H. D.'s work with a break fkom the preconceived notions of women's writing by ascribing both feminine and traditionally masculine values, such as

"heroic," to her work. H. D. is transformed by Moore into the "feminine" and

"intellectual" woman whose writing will remain "inde~tructibk.~

Tbe Sin of Self Promotion

Moore had long desired to be a reviewer as well as a pet. As early as 1915, she expressed an interest to her brother, stating that she "should like to do books once a week for the magazine section" of the Phifdelphia Ledger, and had been working on some sample reviews (Letter to John Wamer Moore, December 16, 1915, in Goadridge, 1). As

Goodridge notes, Moore boldly confided to her brother "that she îmagined she could secure the position if given the opportunity to present herself in an interview"

(Goodridge, 1). Within a year, she had published in The Chiniera and The Egoist, and by

3 For more in-dcpth dngsof the relationship bttwccn Moore and H. D., set Pcggy Phclan's "Wcapon's and Scalpels: nie Early Patry of H. D. and Marianne Moore, in MPrcorme Moore Woman: d Poer- cd Paîricia C. W~llis.Orono: TbNational Poctry Foudation, 1990; for Bishop and Moore sec Bctsy Erldcila's % WicAed Sisrers: Women Poets, Lirerrqv Hirtory anà Discord New York,-Oxford University Press, 1992, and especially Rosame Wasserman's "'A Tiltelary Muse': Moore's influence on Bishop," aiso in Marianne Moore Wompn= and Pwi. 19 18 had fmdy established herseif as a critic, reviewing such works as T. S. Eliot's

Prufiock and Other Observations and William Butler Yeats' The Wifd Swans for Poehy.

Yet Marianne Moore's prose has been overwheimingly underestimateâ, or treated merely

as an extension of her poetic efforts, and not regarded to be of significant critical value in

itself. Kenneth Burke, for example, in a 1956 review of Moore's book of essays

Predilections, refers to it as "a study in stylistic scruples," claiming that Moore's "critical

'predilections' are the perfect dogueof her vtic 'observations,"' an iaerpretation

that hsprevailed thmugh the decades (239). Her prose is of critical value, however,

because it reveals her modernist sensibility. Her understanding of the modemist

movement can be experienced throughout her prose in the consistent notice whicb she

pays to the culture and pwts of her tirne?

Until recently, critical attention has focused more on her poetry than on her prose.

This is undoubtedly related to the later perceptions of Moore as a poet of the minute who does not tackle big issues in her work, and is therefore of litde critical value. Yet Moore herself may have also contributed to the negleçt Unlike ber contempoTaTies, who published collections of their prose early and often (Pound, Eliot and Williams, to name but a few), Moore did not publish a collection of her prose until 1955. When Moore finally did publish Predilections, she "disguised the range of her enterprise with the somewhat self-deprecating titie" (Goodridge, 17). As a title for a collection of critical essays, Predilections, meaning "preferenca" or "of special liking," does not announce that its contents are of cntical value. Moore, however, was always hesitant to announce

' Celeste GOOdridge writcs that Moore's publishcd and private pmse reveals how she carcfuily foHowcd the careers ofPound, Eliot Williams and Stevens, and that hcr collection of notes and rcviews provides one of the rnost cornpletc portraits of their individual professions (Goodridge, Hi= d DkguUes: Mmânt~ Moore and Her Contempomria. 7). her opinions in an overt manner. In faci, she even was reluctant to cal1 her essays essuys

at dl. They were reviews. Moore once commented in a letter to George Saintsbury ht

an essay "has somehow more the identity of the writer than the review has" (Letter to

Saintsbury, September 14, 1928, in Goodridge, 15). Since she prefemd to cal1 her own

essays reviews, it can be deduced that she did not want her own identity to be a

prominent feature of her writing. Through this selkffacement, Goodridge argues,

Moore

. . . tdfewer overt risks and gave up less of her identity as a writer than if she had labeled her efforts essays. Reviews were publicly sanctioned to sell books and promote writers; they were a perfect medium for someone who wanted to enter the public arena but did not want a spotlight focused on her for attempting to move into this sphere. (15).

Still, Moore wshill of ideas, and longed to write. A review provided the perfect

medium. Moore codd conceal her criticai ideas within the body of a review and thus

advance her ideas while keeping herself absent; she would not appear to be advancing

herself Moore's brief foreword to Predilectiom illustrates how she removed herself

fiom her writing. She writes:

Silence is more eloquent than speech-a tniism; but sometirnes somethg that sorneone has writtea excites one's admiration and one is tempted to write about i~ if it is in a laoguage other than one's own, perhaps to translate it-or try to; one feels that what holds one's attention might hold the attention of others. That is to say, there is a language of sensibility of which words can be the por

Moore opem her collection of prose by shiAing the reader's focus hmher own writing to the subject about which she is writing. Her continued use of the pronom "one" also deflects from her personal involvement with the text The language is hesitant; she uses tentative phrases such as "perhaps to translate, or try to," ancl Wght hold the attention of others." Still, there is something awkward in this presentation, and it would almost seem that "silence," afier dl, "îs more eloquent than speech." The selfsffacing approach that she takes in the foreword insinuates an uncertaintty about the collection's worth. Moore's hesitation to publish a collection of her prose, coupled with the reluctance with which she fïnally does, cuuld conceivably cause her readers to hesitate in recognizing its merit.

Moore had long been hesitant about pubiishing even her poetry, which received far more critical acclaim- It is significant that her fïrst collection of poetry, Poenis, was published by fnends without her bowledge. In response to its publication, Moore wmte in a Juiy 192 1 letter to Bryher:

1 had considered the matter hmevery point and was sure of my decision- -thaî to publish anythiag now would not be to my iiterary advantage; 1 wouldn't bave the poems appear now if 1 couid help it and would not have some of them ever appear and wodd rnake certain changes. (7 July 1921, 164)

Similarly, she wmte to Robert McAlmon, saying that Wle poems ought not to have corne out" (8 July 192 1, 168). Yet, in an earlier letter to Bryher in October 1920, whïle on one hand protesthg that she had not produced enough to consider publishing a volume of work, Moore did not directly discourage her hmpursuing such an end. In fàcS she wrote that was "doubly gratefiiln for Bryher's wish "îhat something could be done about having the poems published in a volume" (1 5 October 1920, 133). Moore had even expressed her determination to publish a book of poems in a letter to her brother in 1915

(Costello, in Selected Letters, 121). Years later, however, in an interview with Donaid

Hall, Moore reflected on the publication of Poems by Bryher and H. D., saying: "To issue my slight product-~~nspicuouslytentative-seemed to me premature. . . [but] "for the chivalry of the undertaking. . . 1 am intensely gratefid" (27). In the same inte~ew,she

even admitted that denMacMillan and Faber and Faber approached her about

publishg Selected Poem, she felt it to be 'hot very judicious," since "desultory occasional magazine publications seemed suficient" to her (27). Nevertheless, Mwre published her lengthy poem "Maniage" in 1923, and another collection of poems,

Obserwatiom, in 1924. In spite of her eventual proclamation to the contrary, Maore did have an appetite to publish her work. What ber comments to Donaid Hall coasequently reveal about Moore, then, is her curious combination of ambition and humility, enthusiasm and reserve, regarding her own work. The consequence was, however, that she would experience a strain between her ambitious creative urge and her resistance to promote herselE

Moore's hesitation to promote herse1f also limited her critical acceptance. Recall that hmearly on critics extolied Moore's poetry for king crafted cool and intellectual, but not necessarily as ambitious. The implication of this is that while Moore was regarded as an eccentric pet, she was not viewed as a great or genius puet. For pets, to be ranked as genius is the ultimate acknowledgement of the critical value of their work.

Accordmg to Bob Pereiman in his 1994 book The Trouble with Genilrr, "the notion of genius in its modernist incarnation is bound up with [aJ strain between presence and obscurity" and tbat "an aura of illegible authority surrounds the modemist genius, offering a lure for endless study" (1). Perelman is suggesting that in poetry by geniuses, in spite of its obscurity, the author is still mgniaable. Certaialy, Moore's work fits this dennition. While he litnits his list of modemist pet geniuses to Stein, Pound, Joyce and

Zukofsky exclusively, Perelman writes that Moore, amongst others (Eliot and Williams), could "conceivably" be included in his study, except tbat theu fomi of writing, "poems, rather than life-writing," limits them, resdting in "a sense of f~tenessand social location" (3). This is to say that he does not believe thei.writing to be ambitious enough.

Perelman claims that "genius is an emblem for the desires" that drive an author to conceive of "ambitious writing structures or strategiesw(2). Part of this ambitious strategy, according to Perelman, mut also involve to a great degree the self-promotion of the authors themsefves. Moore's hesitation perplexes critics, because it suggests that even Moore herself did not believe her work to be of value. The very act of publishing anything suggests that Moore enjoyed promoting her ideas. and is arguably indicative of ambition; however, the result of ber hesitation to promote herselfis that she cannot be labeled a "geniusw in Perelmau's sense of the word. Kevin Dettmar in "Selling Ulysses," notes that "as a nile, we do not Like to ta& or think about the Modernists' involvement in the marketing of their works" (795). htead, he argues, the modernists as a group appeared to disdain self-promotion. Wbile this may seem to go agakt Perelman's notion of genius, it does not necessarily conflict The promotional activities of many of the major modemists are widely documented. Therefore, if Detbnar's assumptions are correct, al1 modernists needed ta be discreet in promoting themselves, not ody Moore.

So, while Moore's selfceffacement is more obvious than her that of her contemporarïes, an argument couid be made that she too was attempting to appear in line with this notion of the officia1 moâernist stance, while nnding ways to subvert it. The possible motives behind Moore's subversion, however, are even more cornplex.

In order to understand Moore's hesitation to advance herself. it is also important to understand her notion of the sin of self-promotion. That Marianne Moore was a devout Presbyterian wswell lcnown amongst her peers? Andrew J. Kappel argues that

Moore, uniike her contemporaries, does not share "any veiled selfexpressive-in the long

run autobiographical-ambitions. She would have considered such ambitions sWW

('Wotes on the Presbyterian Poetry of Marianne Moore," 43). Kappel notes that according

to the Reverend John A. MacKay, President of the famous Princeton Theological

Seminary hm1936 to 1959 (where, in fact her brother John Wamer Moore had studied

to be a minister hm191 1- M), "'the essence of human sin is to be self-centered,'" and

that Moore, as a devout Presbyterian, "could not indulge poetically any interest in

herseif' (Kappel, "Notes," 43). This did not negate her ability to write poehy, however.

Whaî she could and dîd do, according to Kappel, is hilfill a more acceptable,

recognizably Protestant purpose in her writing. For example, he argues:

. . . the central theme of her poetry, the theme of srniggle. . . is regularly pointed to denher modernism is being wted; it is of course a recognbable modem theme, of importance to Yeats and Pound most evidently, but to many other modems as weli. For them it is tantamount to the condition of skepticism; for Moore it is tantamount to the condition of belieE (Kappel, 44~)~

It is because Moore understands the notion of struggle in a Christian context that she can write about it. In fact, ber writing in itself represents a aggle between her creative need and her Christian sense of pmpriety. By writhg in contexts that were acceptable to her

faith, and avoiding any self-promotion, MOOR,accordhg to Kappel, was able to fulfill

It is not my intention to dirus Mm's fDth in detail, buî to provide a pu

While Ostriker's belief that Moore assumed Wimidities and disguises" as a means to subvert male modemist autbonty is compelling, the reasons behind Moore's reserved rnanner are more cornplex. Mwre's reluctance to promote herself is not a simple subversive ploy to gain acceptame into the commrmity of male modernists-Moore needed to subvert her own religious sensibilities in order to produce her art and express her ideas. Still, the absence of any obvious ambition in Moore's efforts could and surely has îhstrated critics wbo would prefer that a taiented artist, especially a woman, be more expressly self-confident7

Moore Amongst the Hïgb Modttnists

Moore's hesitatiou to promote herseWhas proved difficult for those critics who would prefer an artist to be more openly dedarative about her achievements. Stiii, while

Moore may have appeared reluctant to promote herself, she was actively involved in the shaping of the broder project of modernist poeüy. Tbere is strong evidence that Moore iduenced the work of the major modernists, and that they had confidence in her ability.

For example, W. H. Auden wmte in a 1944 review of Moore's work in The New York

Times BookRewiew, that %e endless musical possibilities of Miss Moore's invention are a treasure wbich al1 future English poets will be able to plunder," adding that he had

"already stolen a great deai" himself ("New Poems," 7). John Slatin, in his 1986 book

The Savage 's Romance,attributes the discoveries of WilIiams' Spring and AII and In

'Chapter 3 of this thesis explores in mon detail Moore's of humility and rcveals it to k part of her own individual feminist politic. Amerkan Grain in large part to Moore's example (see Slatin, 1 1). Almost thirty years

earlier, R P. Blackmur had suggested that Pound's Cunfoswere partly denved hm

Moore's innovations ("Method of Marianne Moore," 83). Even Pound himself remarked

on the similarity between Moore's use of quotations and T. S. Eliot's The WmeLond by

wrïting "Mariannewin the rnargins of a draft copy. Eliot's widow insisted that this was

not a reference to Moore, but Pound was more than lilcely cautionhg Eliot against

borrowing another poet's tradernarit (See Costello, lmaginary Possessions, 184-5). Jane

Heuving, in her 1992 book Omissions are Not Accidents, ad& to the argument by

commenthg that Moore's first quotation poem, "People's Surromdings," was published

in the June 1922 issue of The Di&, while IZe Wmte Land did not wme out util the

October 1922 issue (Heuving, 18 1).

What remains more fbîrating for certain critics is wfiat they interpret as Moore's

unwillingness to publicly criticize the major male modemists. If Moore seemed reluctant

to promte herself publicly, she appeared equally bath to aîtack her modernist

contemporaries in print- Moore ofkn avoided becoming publicly embattled with such

members of the modernist community as Eliot, Williams, and Pound; still, while she would avoid directly criticizing them, she would not unconditionally praise their efforts.

As Goodridge argues, Moore's restraint has Idsome feminist critics to speculate tbat

Moore "could only enter the predominantly male critical discourse of her conternporaries

in this muted fashion" (Gddge, 12). Her teSftaitlt is more complicated than that, however. Ostriker, recali, maintains that Moore could not have gained acceptance by the male community any other way; implicit in this argument, however, is the notion that

Moore was intimidated by her male colleagues. It was not so. On close inspection of many of her reviews of even the pmrninent moderrtists, it is possible to find cnticisms,

although carefully disguised. Moore's 193 1 review of Pound's Dr4of XXX Cantos in

Poetry, for example, harbors veiled criticism of Pound's fkquent obscurity. Moore

writes that "an annoyance by no means petty is the Lack of an index," but adds:

Those who object to the Cantos ' obscurity-who prefer the earlier poems- are Like the victirns of Calvin who have not read him. It may be tme that the authof s revisions make it harder, not easier, for hurried readers; but fiame kindies to the eye that contemplates it. ("The Cantos," in Complete Prose, 273)

Her criticism of Pound's obscurity is quickiy veiled by the notion tbat it is the reader, and

not the author, who has failed and must adjust. Further on in the review Moore writes that

the Canîos put "strain on bipedal understanding," but again covers by adding that "even

if one understd nomone would enjoy the musicianship" (275). In an otherwise glowing review, these comrnents are significant.

Still, while seemingly hesitant to criticize publicly, Moore never hesitated to criticize in pnvate correspondence. Her letters reveal her to be a woman who was both cornfortable and confident enough to crïticize the major modemists- For example, in a letter to Pound in 1919, she expressed the "great pleasure" she experienced reading both his prose and verse, but added that it was the "saucy parts" which "fixed her attention."

She added: "1 like a fight but 1 admit that 1 have at times objected to your promptness with the cudgels" (9 Januv 19 19, 122-3). A similarly candid approach cm be found in her correspondence with William Carlos Williams. Moore's public reviews of Williams' later work focused more on his poetic technique than his subject matter, because she did not agree with his approach. Her 1936 review of Williams' A&m and Eve in the City, for example, focuses almost exclusively on the ment of his technique. She praises the "welded ease of his compositionsn and his "respect for rhythm as personaiity" ("A Vein of Anthracite," in Complete Prose, 349, but in a letter to Williams she openly criticizes his choice of subject matter:

Some of your 'everyday' images, 1 would say, are too everyday to be condoned; and 1 become violently concemeci about the punitive restlessness of ln the Mo.y. Intemal poison may require external poison to counteract it but there certainly must be a point at which the dose becornes dangerous. (7 January 194 1,408)

This apparent hesitation to criticize Williams' publicly is also evident regarding his major poetic effort, Paterson. Moore continued to admire Williams' technique, but was

"acutel y aware of Williams' unevenness" in the poem (Goodridge, 77). While Moore refiised to comment publicly on Book IV of Paterson, they did exchange several private letters about the poem in June 195 1 (Goodndge, 77). Williams wrote a letter to Moore, accusing her of not living "in the normal world," and questioned wby she should disapprove of his "old gai" of the fkst few pages of Paterson IV, who %as a hard part to play and to my mind plays it rather well" (19 June, 1951, in Goodridge, 77). In response

Moore wrote:

The trouble for me with yow mu& and ready girl, is that she does not seem to me part of something that is inescapably typical. Tbat is to say, writing is mtjust nmn>sity; but an interpretation of life-protest as you may in the style of our early arguments about the lily and the mud. (One as 'lovely' technicaily speaking, as the other!) . . . [Tlhe technical achievement here, in Paterson IV iS achievement in the early parts, and usefiil to me. (Ponder this as you will.) (Letter to Williams, 22 June 1951,492)

Again, Moore nnds Williams' "everyday images" in Paterson difficult to tolerate, and

"his refusal to transform his world unacceptable" (Goodridge, 98-9). In her letter, she reprimands his approach to Life, and praises his technique-aithough even there, her praise

Thus, without carefbl analysis of the veiled criticism within her reviews, or an

examination of her pnvate correspondence, it certainly could appear that Moore is merely

conformllig to male expectations in order to be accepted within the modernist

conununity. As Goodndge argues, Moore's unwiliingness to engage in public disputes

with her contemporaries can be interpreted as

. . . an endorsement of a particuiar aesthetic, one that is in keephg with her belief that criticisms and mviews, on one level, should protect the writer under consideration For Moore, there is a grace and strength in withholâing direct jdgements-in making her reader strain to see what is deliberately al ways partially concealed. (Goodridge, 13)

It dso indicates that she recognizes the importance of a collective critical mission to the

advancement of the modernist rnovement How they review each other couId and would

have an effect on their reception by contemporary audiences, Moore's own reception

king a case in point. in a letter to T. S. Eliot, Moore expressly thanks him for "the armor

afforded me by your introduction" to her Selected Poem, as the "reviewers bow to the

defense" (June 27,1935,347). Certainly, she was aware of the significance of such

public mutuai support.

Moore at TILe DM

While Marianne Moore bad firmly established herself as a poet by 1925, she had

also ken building a reputation as a reviewer, and a member of the elite group of writers at The Dial. Not only had she won the prestigious Diuf Award for her ptryin 1924;

she had been an active contributor since 1920. When Scofield Thayer decided to resign as the magazine's editor (but mainiain the role of chef financier), Moore was the logical

choice to succeed him- What Moore inherited with the editorship of The Dial, however,

was the tradition established by Thayer. While other contemporary publications-The

Littfe Review, Broom and ht-intended to shock teaders, The Dia1 published many of

the same authors with a more sober purpose: "To tum out each month a flaw1ess

journal. . . to mold every disparate element in Arnerican culture into one organic

community where men of art were also men of pod(qtd. in Wassentrom, 1 10).

Although Thayer's aspirations were arguably a-ve, The Diai was a brilliantly put-

together journal, placing the work of established writers next to that of writers previously

unpublished. Still, as Tbayer grew more mentally unstable, he and the other Diol owner,

Sibley Watson, had increasing disagreements regarding contributors, and he began to

suffer fiom paranoid delusions that certain people were intentionally persecuting him.

His personal stniggle with and eventual di';missal of Ezra Pound as Paris correspondent

ia 1923, is perhaps his most notorious episodeg. It was obvious that he could no longer

manage the editorship of the magazhe. Foliowing a bnef stint under Alyse Gregory,

Marianne Moore assumed the fùll editorship in 1925.

The importance of Marianne Moore's editorship to the shaping of The Dia1 is

somewhat contentious. Historical studies of The Diul have tended to underestimate

Moore's role as editor, believing that she merely toed the editorial line set by Thayer and

Watson, a view perpetuated by Moore herself in her essay "The DIQI:A Retrospect."

niaycr had also rejected Pound's Malatesta cantos, against the advice of both Watson and T. S. Eliot (although Watson would rcgrrdiilly admit ycar~latcr that hc bad gont dong with Thaycr). Thaycr wmtc in a March 1923 letter to Watson: Y pcrsonally abhor Pod's cantos as I abhor his Paris Lettcrs." and cvm threatencd to leave The Diol athet than publish any of it. Hii corrcspOndtlIce with Pound arc equally unyielding. For a good chronicle of Thayer's dcsccnt Uito paranoia, sec William Wascrsmrn's history Tk Time of The Diai, and îhe lettcrs compilad in Wdtcr Suiton's Pdîhyer, Weonand The Did Even some more recent critics such as Celeste Goodrïdge, admit that while it is tempting to link what was pubtished in The Diaï with Moore's own critical values, "the linkage is not smooth" (Goodridge, 4). She contends that Moore herself admitted in a ietter to

Saintsbury in 1926 that she had "ody half the power in decision, and often declined to use the whole of that" (Goodridge, 5). On the other hanci, Jayne Marek argues that while

Moore had hesitated in taking over the editorship hmThayer, fearing that she would be unable to "meet the rigors of the position," she in fact took complete control of &e editorship of The Dial. Marek insists that while Moore rnaintained respectfid relations with Thayer, there were muent disagreements between the two, which Moore tactfidly smwthed over by "appealing to Thayer' s pride," and giossing over her own ambitions

(148-9). Moore was aware thaî Thayer's name was of value to the magazine's continued reputation, and worked very hard to keep him hmwithdrawing completely- Marek believes that her particular editing of the various submissions received is inâïcative of her editoriai control, and proof that Thayer and Watson's positions within The Dids editorial team were strictly for show.

Wbile there is Limitai evidence to support Marek's impression of Moore's autonomous position, Goodridge's perception is also surprisingly inadquate in that it relies more on Moore's own modest arimissions, and pays little heed to the correspondence or Moore's own editorials. It is preferable to subscribe to the view of

TafQ Martin, who contends that "in spite of Moore's own self-effacing accouots of her editorship, sbe rapidly assumed a position of authority tbat she used in assembling each issue" (Martin, 45). Moore's editorial authonty nted not negate her consultations with

Watson, and accounts for the evidence that Moore injecteci her own ideas and penonality into the content and tone of the publication. Her authority can be seen in the marner in

which she edited contributors' work.

While certain of nie Diuf traditions and îhe conservative opinions of Thayer (and

Watson) were similar to Marianne Moore's own strmg opinions about order, decorum and duty, her approach to editing The Dial would be different, More recent Moore critical study reveals tbat Moore wielded far more infiuence than she has been given credit for. Following a study of Mwre's private papers, Ta@ Martin contends îhat

Moore read everything that was submitted to The Diaf:

Documentation for the first few months of her editorship exists in her precise, fodletters, which initially asked the advice of J. Sibley Watson. . .on host every transaction. These letters quickly become merely informal notations of Moore's editorial decisions to which Watson simply added his approval. Then, fw nwi obediently continuhg Thayer's design, Moore began shaping every opinion in the magazine. (48)

Moore's sculpting of me Dial was done both covertly and overtiy. During her tenure as editor, Moore filled the pages with her anonymous contributions to the book review pages. While this is perhaps typical of many publications, it furnished Moore with opporhuiity to critique cmntpublications without having to state it as king her own opinion. Given Moore's reluctance for self-promotion, this forum must have appealed to her. Anonymity also provided her with occasion ta promote those she believed in. When

Glenway Wescott rehised to review William Carlos William's In the American Grain, for example, Moore ensdthe book would gain notice by reviewing it herself (Marek,

1634). As for the other material within the pages of The Diui, she continued to solicit contributions hmlong established Did authors such as William Carlos Williams and

E. E. Cummingr, while adding to the roster such notables as Louis Zukofsky, Gertrude Stein, and George Saintsbury. Her most important move, however, was her deliberate

reintroduction of an important contributor who had ken dismissed by Thayer himself in

1923.

Marianne Moore wote twice to Ezra Pound in 1925, requesthg cnticai reviews

of work by Stendhal, to which she Wlyreceived a reply. Pound stated that his

"connection with The Dia1 terminateci some time ago," and that he prefed to "leave

criticism and prose in general to younger men" (Letter to Marianne Moore, 14 September

1925, in Sutton, 309). Moore, apparently undaunted, continued to press Pound, and keep

an open dialogue with him. In November 1925, he suggested that she should look at

Cheever Dunning's "Four Winds," three selections hmwhich subsequently appeared in

The Dial in 1927 and 1928 (Letter to Marianne Moore, 13 November 1925, in Sutton,

3 1 1). Moore appealed again for wodc hmPound on 8 December 1925, arguing that he

codd retum as a "guide" for "younger men," and could write about any "subject of

aesthetic irnport" to him (Letter to Pound, in Marek, 156). According to Martin, in his

eventual response in letters of January adFebruq 1927, Pound stated that he "wouidn't

consider giving his journalism to a magazine that threw away his best work, and asked

whether she had 'ANY knowledge' of his expenence with the previous editor" (48).

Moore did have some knowledge of the split between Thayer and Pound. In fact, Watson

had written to ber on 10 October 1925 about the "serious row" in which Pound had been

''unjustly treated," which ended in Pound's departure hmThe Dia& Watson had also

informed Mwre of Thayer's rejection of Pound's Canfos in another letter on 27 February

1927 (in Sutton, 3 1 1; 322). Still, Moore prudently continued to woo Pound, and responded to him with the following: in answer to your letter of Febniary 9'b, 1 may say that 1 have no precise knowledge of pst correspondence between you and The Did. Nevertheless 1 feel that the invitation that 1 extended to you was entirely supported by interest on Mr. Thayer's part . . And before that, upon my coming to the office, Dr. Watson expressed an interest in your poetry. . . Perhaps 1 am criminal in liking some things better than others- even by an author for whose work 1 have unqualified enthusiasm; and 1 feel that individuals may sometimes publish what magazines may not. But 1 have always read your work wiîh delight. Accordingly, to have none of it to publish since 1 have been associated with The Dial has been to me a real hardship. (26 April 1927, in Marek, 157)

At the time of writing this letter Moore hpd known something about the rift; still, rather

than making excuses for her Dial compatriots, which would only exacerbate the situation,

it appears she prefed to move the situation beyond the confIict and back to literary

matters. Most importantly, however, was Moore's tealization that the best approach to

gaining Pound back would be an appeai to his ego. SU, Pound did not send a

manuscript uutil he was offered the Did Award by Watson, apparently at Moore's

suggestion9. Perhaps stiii imtated by the fight with Thayer, Pound offered up his cantos,

and Canto 27 appeared aiongside the award amouncement in the January 1928 issue of

The Dial. The remof Pound to the publication is an important move, as he contributed

material to almost every subsequent issue. The significance of this contribution to the

magazine could not have been lost on Moore.

Moore's influence on the shape of me Diai, however, goes well beyond her promotion of particular writers. Moore's "Comments" in me Dicd, for example, reflect

9 Various sources phrase this diffitly; in his collection ofDdcotfcspondence Pd W~tson. & The Dial, for example, Sutton writcs that the award was offed by Watson "after consultation with Moore" (Sutton, 303); howcvcr, the collection contains nonc of the conrspond«ice of Moore, and is clearly intent on focusing on the rclationship of thc thrce men in the titlc. Given the pcnistmcc with which she sought Pound's contributions, it would sctm lilrcly that Martin's notion of evcnts is more accurate (Sec Martin, 48). her own modemist sensibiiities, just as Thayer's earlier mission for The Dial (the attempt to have the magazine mirror the pludistic quality of modem American life), cm be seen in each editorial he wrote. Nicholas Joost writes that traditionally The Dial "was a unified artistic entity, constructed with care and. . .making use of the whole orchestra and of al1 the colors of art. . . in this orchestration, 'Comment' played the part of the conductor" (122).1° Joost fbrther contends that derMoore's editorship ne Dial editorial "became less combative in that it usually eschewed the lit- conîroversies of the later twenties," which is consistent with his perception that Moore's editorship marked the end of The Did (124). Martin, on the other haad, believes that Moore's editoriais were in fact far more creative than Thayer's, and provide a link to understanding her editorial sensibility. Martin argues that Moore reacted to the same realization as Thayer but that she deliberately chaaged the defensive and argumentative tone of the earlier editorials. Martin writes: "Moore's essays present judgements, just as

Thayer's do, but they are positive judgements that accept and mirror rather than attempt to diminish the fkgmentation of the modern world" (47). Rather than attempt to synthesize the worlâ, Moore created diaiectical essays which subvert the possibility of synthesis, praising disparity and pludit-instead. This is quite different nom Thayer's approach. In the March 1926 Did Moore me:

'O art in msinrains that "in wizhing to k both dcmocntic and seamicssly inclusive. Thayer fomd himself pessimistically, if ironically, atkmpting 'to discover what was wrong with the world'" (Martin, 46). This "plaint against modcniity" is expresscd even in his early editorial commmts, rcsulting in The DiPI assuming a more defensive tom under hun- An example of ïhaycr's pessunism can be sccn in the following tditorial "Comment," in wbich hc complained about the incongru@ bctwren Coleridge's "Kubla Khann and the dityof a great steel strikc in Jamalpur. Bengai. He wmtc: "What comrption has corne over Jamaipur that it must have steel worlrs. and havuig steel works, why cannot things be so areangui that we, at leasf know nothing of thn(The Dd, 775546). Thayds inability to accept the incongniitics of the modem world, that a pkof gmat btaucy can simultaneously hahor steel factories and social unrest, gave rise to his pcssimism abut tk world. The brittle, briliiant character of life today is varyingly exposited. Speed and sport are it would seem, indigenous to this country. We have the cafloe, but ignore the punt and one could inspect the cratt belonging to any American yacht-club without hding as a name, the continually approved Pm Pressé. We are accustomed in America to admitting that "the prosperous, good-looking domimering woman is a very attractive being." Our most presentable young people seem to share in the attitude of haste, and are accused of irreverence, ingratitude and flippancy. We are, however, encourageci to suspect beneath the mannerism of quick self- sufficiency, a root of seriousness. (The Did, 80:265)

In this description of Amencan progress, Moore acknowledged a contradiction in the

wide variety of American values without resewation or apology. Moore described the

twentieth century as an "age of curiosity, of excursiveness and discursiveness," and

rejected the romantic notion of re-g to a time of past simplicity (The Diaf 8O:3 55).

Her observations of modem Arne- may refiise to deny fauit, but they do not express

the pessimistic despair that Thayer's comments engender. It would seem that Moore's

comments exhibit her own point of view, and not those of her Diol compatriots.

Marianne Moore also difZered as an editor hmmany of her contemporaries in that she did not merely accept or reject the submitted work of contributors; where possible, she would revise their work and offer it back as the condition under which it wouid be accepted by The Dial for publication. For example, in July 1925, Moore wmte to Robert HiUyer, suggesting that his poem "Remote" would be better without the final line, and with the third staaza completely omitted, to which he gratefully complied

(Selected Leiîers, 2 12). Moore also informeci Mabel Dodge Luhan in 1925 that her story

"Southwest" would be accepted oniy if "smaii changes in wording" were made, to which she gratewy cornplie& eventually sending Moore a gifl hmNew Mexico in thanks Others were not so obliging. In a letter to Conrad Aiken in May 1929, for example, Moore wmte tbat his poem "Yeu Went to the Verge" would be accepted

"sanctionuig, however, the omission of the 1st seventeen lines" (Selected Letfers,2 13).

Rather than alter his work, Aiken withdrew the submission. A few would be less polite.

Maxwell Bodenheim, following Moore's partial rejection of "In a Garden," vented bis anger at the "harshly exacting, complete-perfection-or-rejectionattitude" of neDial, and later wrote "Gd how 1 hate you and your mean, Ullfair, haif-blid, apprehensively arbitrarily, literary pup" (Bodenheim, cited in Selected Letiers, 2 13). ' ' When Moore suggested substantial changes and a new titie for Hart Crane's "The Wine Menagerie" he complied, but later maintainecl that it was only for financial reasons. Accordmg to

Moore, she djusted Crane's because she "felt him to be a gwd pet, even a fiend, and that the poem could be impmved" (Molesworth, 220). For his part, Crane would corne to refer to Moore as the "Rt Rev. Mountjoy," and would cornplain bitterly to tnends that "American poetry was in the bands of two hysterical virgins," Marianne

Moore and Margaret Anderson of The Linle Review (qtd. in Selected Letter, 2 13;

Molesworth, 220). Nevertheless, since The Dial under Moore published seven Crane works before his White Buildings appeared, his appearances in The Dial doubtless had a significant impact upon his acceptame as a poet-

in spite of the cornplaints of some, Moore successfiilly lured the iikes of Gertrude

Stein and Ezra Pound to the magazine, and even edited their work quite fieely. Their

II Bodenheirn was obviously fiustratcd by Moore. She had also once rejectcd one of his essays, writing that "in retuming your 'Poctic Essay*' nie Diol congrahilatcs you upon lines ninc to f- inclusive" (Letter to Maxwell Bodcnhcim July 6 l!US,2 t 8). Given hcr formal nature, it is probably Moore's intention to offer rdpraise hem, but it is also clear how some writcrs might take offencc to her appoach. It is also a testament to tk confidence that shc had in ber own understanding of the modernkt movement. willingness to allow the alterations perhaps stems from the more tacm approach that

Moore selected denapproaching these more famous literary figures. For example, when soliciting for a selection hmStein's The Muking of Americums, Moore enthusiasticaily praised the work (such praise reportedly king essential in any deaiing with her), referring directly to those sections that she particularly appreciated, before casudly alluding to The Did as king "not at überty to offer very abundant space," and offering "a representative issue" of the publication for her pend (Moore, letter to

Gertrude Stein, 4 March 1927, cited in Mar& 160). As Marek notes, Moore was discreetly suggesting to Stein the sort of contribution that would be acceptable, fully aware that Stein's length and style might not always correspond with the magazine. Yet, by creating a positive atmosphere, Moore steered Stein away firom sending matend that she would not accept. Moore used a similar tact again when she wmte to Stein about her submission fiom A hgGcry Book:

It is a happiness to us that you shouid grant us these pages ofA Long Gay Book. Have you sufficient patience with magazines to know that this delight is genuine, and yet that we can wish to omit a portion? 1s it out of the question to suggest that you allow us to stop on page 2, with the sentence, 'It is something to have a baby corne hto the world through them. It is nothing just to be one.' and continue on page 6: 'In this book there will be discussion of pairs of people and their relation,'? (5 April 1927, in Marek, 160)

Moore deffly complimented Stein about the work, and then made her editoriai suggestion that a signifiant portion be removed. Yet approaching Stein in such a positive manner deflects attention brnthe fact tbat Moore is actually tailoring Stein's work to suit the tastes of The Diuf. Stein accepted the changes, and the excerpt hmA Long Gay Book was published in September 1927. It is notable that Stein published in The Dia1 only while Moore was editor.

Moore's dealings with Pound were equally skillfid. Once Moore had lured Pound back to The Dlal, he too was subject to her editorial determination. In response to his criticisrns and suggestions regarding her editorial choices, Moore wote to Pound:

We have no policy other than that which is apparent. . . . WeJare not willing to displace certain conûibutors that we have, and in respect to new ones, feel we cannot refùse or accept work until we have seen it. (Letter to Pound, 9 Febrwy 1928, in Mar& 158)

On occasion Moore even refùseâ Pound's work, but was stül quick to pepper her rejection with ample praise. For example, when she nrzjected "The City," she was careful to state that *le they were "predispsed to publish anything" Pound sent, "The City"

"was not homogeneous with our plan" (February or March 1928, in Marek, 158). Ln April

1928, she sent a letter asking to cut a few specifïc pages hmhis introduction to his

Guido Calvacanti's "Donna Mi Prego" translation. As Molesworth notes, "since the piece was slated for the July issue it is safe to assume she thought he would agree with her recommendations" (22 1). Nevertheless, the iimited tirne frame implies not only her anticipation of his approval, but tbat she used her license to edit even Pound quite boldly.

It is likely, then, that the shape that The Dial assumed after 1925 was the result of

Marianne Moore's own direction. Many recent critics (Marek, Martin, Goodridge and

Molesworth, for example) agree that Moore's decision to alter submissions to suit the interests of The Did ailowed for the acceptance of material that would have othenivise gone unpublished. Stiil, perhaps the continued resistance to the notion of Moore actively editing The Did, particularly among scholars not fdarwith Moore, is due in part to Moore's own reluctance to take credit for it. According to Molesworth, Alyse Gregory

(the previous Did editor) had drawn up a booklet of editorial niles for the publication, which clearly forbid any changes to submitted work, and encouraged the policy of strict acceptance or rejection of al1 works as submitted (220). Years later, Moore would daim in her interview with Donald Hall that The Did "had an unflexible de:do not ask changes of so much as a comma. Accept it or reject it" (Interview, 38). Sa, the practice of cutting and ecüting author's submissions to tailor them to Tlw Did became stanâard under Moore's editorship, whïch suggests that she was not working fiom any perceiveci policy other than her own. Molesworth notes that Moore would often write to rejected writers, encouraging "more technical rigor," arguing that The Diuf was interested in Whe purely aesthetic" and not "the politicai or instructional," and "ht literature should reflect an elevated concept of Life" (2 17). Significantly, these points are more consistent with

Moore's own preference for the aesthetic over the political, as her tastes "steered away fiom redism and naturalism, especiaiiy of a sort that contained 'low' subject matter and a more or less deterraiaistic view of the world" (Molesworth, 217-8). Again, this is evidence that Moore was actively adjusting submissions to The Dial to suit her own tastes and philosophies. She shaped the publication to re flect that which she found valuable, and not necessarily wôat had been intended by Thayer or Watson.

It is odd that Moore should maintain that she subscribed to an editorial policy, when clearly she did not; but perhaps it ail cornes back to her hesitation to promote herself openly and publicly. As aiways, it is in her personal letters that the more self- assured individual is reveaied. In a letter to Ezra Pound in December 1932, Moore writes that a good editor "should know how to keep contributors hmbecoming sharks in the net and should be able to actuate hem to do better for him than they do for others" (19

December 1932, in Marek, 164). This admission regarding the need for editorial control

surely suggests that Moore herse1 f knew how to bandle her contributors. In another letter

to Pound in March of 1933, Moore writes:

1 feel cooperative if one has anything to present toward makùig art great, or keeping it unmuddied, but 1 cannot see that 1 am unique in this. Every clear tbinker and sound woricer that we have, is committed to the procedure. You, for instance, have been untiring in producing the best work. So has Mr. Zabel, and though 1 should never have thought to say so independently, 1 have myself-by intention, at least; and it seems wasteful to let production be hindered by taking time to analyze the negative aspect of pmgress. 1 think 1 asked you before, why lend conspicuousness to writers whom we regard as siUy or comiptt? . . . Moreover, a dilemma that 1 am very wnscious of is our dependence on publications that are less than perféct. An absolute chivalrous necessity cornpets the continuhg to keep the faith with a publication to the degree one showed it by consenthg to appear in it. (2 March, 1933,301)

This excerpt challenges the uuobtrusive image that Moore perpetuated in her interview

with Donald Hall. Instead, it reveals a self-assured woman who was more committed to

the advancement of the modemist movement îhan of herself. The "chivaltous necessity"

that Moore suggested was required for supporthg certain pubiications is arguably the

same motive that prevented her hmpubiicly proclaimjng her own accomplishments as editor of me Dial. Years later, in ber essay "The Diak A Retrospective," Moore did ackwwledge publicly the agitation that some of ber editorial decisions created, noting that

To some contributors-as to some non-contributors-Zk Dial and 1 in particular, may have seemed quarrelsome, and it is regrettable that manners should be subordinated to matter. Mishaps and anomalies, however, but served to emphasize for me the untoxic soundness of most writers. And today, previous victims of mine have to dread hmme, as pre-empting the jmivilege of the last worâ, nothing more than solicitude that al1 of us may write better. (Complete Prose, 36 1-2)

As Bonnie Costello notes, this is %e voice of an established woman of letters who knows she has left a permanent mark on the Literature of her tirne" (in Selected Letters,

2 14). in spite of her resistance to openly promoting herself, Moore does not seem to be reluctant to having her ideas speak for themselves.

Conclusion

While some critics may offer compelling single-voiced arguments to account for

Moore's hesitant behaviour, the truth is more complicated. Ostriker's assumption that

Moore is merely king subordinate to the demodemist community does not hold up to scrutiny. Upon close examination of Moore's reviews and her letters, a stronger, more independent woman emerges. While at first glance it seems that Moore was disinclined to criticize her contemporaries, she was in fact not afiaid to be direct with her criticism, but perhaps held back where she felt it would not help the overall modernist movement.

As editor of The Diol hm1925 to 1929. Moore's accomplishments helped to sbape the direction the publication would take, and consequently had a lasting influence on the shape of modemism itself. Whüe reluctant to publish, Moore was an ambitious, creative woman, and her restraint is more likely a result of her notion of the sin of self-promotion than of deference to male authority. Marilyn Brownstein perhaps explains Moore best when she writes that

Moore liked manners, decorum, reserve; 'reticence' and 'restraint' are part of a vocabulary of merit exercised throughout her assessments of artistic srchievement-five decades of reviews that mark a contribution to literary modernism as considerable as the achievement of the poetry itself. (327) Moore worked hard to achieve these qualities in her writing, and in the writing issued by

The Dial. Brownstein believes that wbat has fiequently been read in Moore as

"regressive, restrained, or passive" should be read as "aggressively femin.ist'' and

"progressive." in the end, it was Moore's moral aesthetic which guided her both pnvately and publicly during her tenure at Tire Dial, and beyond. As Brownstein concludes:

Intentiody, marginality and reStraitlt constitute the moial principles of Moore's feminist politics. If restraint reflect the woman's subordinate position, then her management of restraint transforms passivity to intention, to power, to creativity. (328) in the following chapter, this thesis will attempt to provide an understandhg of this individual feminist politic of Moore, through careful anaiysis of some of ber more representative poetic works. '1 Should Likc To Be Alont": The Feminist Politics of Mariinne Moon

As this thesis bas already pointed out, many critics of Marianne Moore's poetry have dktly or indirectly referred to it as having "feminine" qualities. Even before Moore's

"spinsterly" reputation ~chedits Peak, critics were stumblhg to identify what this quality was. T. S. Eliot, recall, in his 1923 ~viewof Moore's Poems gives his "one final, and 'magnificent' compliment," that

Miss Moore's poetry is as 'ferninine' as Christin. Rosetti's, one never forgets that it is writîen by a woman; but with both one never thinks of this particularity as anything but a positive virtue. (uMarianne Moore," 597)

What is this quality that he "never forgets?" 1s it that quaiity he refemd to as "something tbat the majority wiil di fiigid" because her work was so crafted, cool and intellectuai

("Lntroduction" to Selected Po-, 9)? 1s it the "clwnliness" and "gentleness" of her poetic "porcelain gardes" that Williams commenteci on in 1925 (Wiliiams, "Marianne

Moore," 395); or the resûaint that Randall Jarre11 in 1945 saw in Moore, another

"armored animal" herself (Jmll, "The Humble Animal," 409)? Or is it what some continue to refer to as her focus on the cornmonplace, the household or the familiar?

Regardless of what is meant by feminine, Moore was supported by her pers as a poet of value, and they strove to advance her withui the poetic community. Yet,femininity became a standard by which Moore's work would be discussed, and in thethe attention given to Moore's feminine qualities by later critics. and even feminist critics, wouid not be so supportive. Her femininity would corne to k sanas a disadvantage in her work and not the "positive virtue" that Eliot had suggested. Red1Robert Bly's notion that

Moore's poetry "represents a treasure-house-a ferninine one" (1 1). Suzanne Juhasz, in an otherwise valuable 1976 book entiîled Naked and Fiery Forms: Modem Americun

Poetry by Women, subscribes to this negative view of Moore when she writes that the

"limited nature of Moore's achievement. . . is related to her womanhood" (3 5). She

argues, as Alicia Ostriker would a few years later, that Moore, while admired for her

"intellect" and "skill," was "so successfiil in the literary world because. . . her femïnine

virtues of 'deference' and 'modesty' were the ones with which men are most cornfortable

(and flattered)" (39). Even more *g, while Ostriker at least gives Moore the benefit of operating subversively, Juhasz interprets Moore's "humility" as a retreat.

Perhaps the pmblem for these later critics is that Moore and her poeûy cannot be easily categorized dong with 0thwomen pets of her time, and requires a more thorough reaâing by those who wish to understand her. Many of the generalist books on modemism have tended to simpl.i@what Moore has done in her poetry. They have not ventured deep enough in their studies of her, and have not explored her papers. It is ody more recently that critical study of Moore tias approached her with more sophistication.

Bonnie Costello, in her 198 1 book Irnugijmy Possessiom, for example, was one of the fmcritics to present an academic treatment of Moore's work By focusing on Moore's chief images, and ignoring the stereotyped virgin in the big haî, Costello gives one of the fûilest readings of Moore's paetry, and provideci a new foudation tiom which Moore scholarship could develop. Costello fin& it surpnsing that Juhasz (and those like her), while staunchly feminist, should agree with male critics, bot-in how they read and evaluate Moore's poetry. She contends that Juhasz assumes the male standards for interpreting Moore's work "a priori," rather than "consider the possible complexity of

Moore's predilections and the original strength of her verse" (Costello, "Ferninine Lunguage OfMurianne Moore,." 90). Juhasz and othea are looking for something else in

Moore's work, something more openly rebellious, sexual or candid. They fail to

appreciate the disthctly individual character of her woh While Moore's work does

display humility, it is not a passive retreat hmthe society that would bind her but an

active move on her pari to claim her place as an individual. The motivation behind the

restraint in her work, that seemingly withdraws her hmher readers, mut be tùlly

understood. Upon close and careful analysis of her work, one can find that there liirks a

strong, independent woman, who does not conform to her tirne, but fights the limitations

placed on her not by subrnission, or passive retreat, but by choosing a path that best

expresses ber sense of individuality.

Poetic Voice

Marianne Moore's poetry has long proven a problem for readers and cntics alike.

They expect particular images or solutions in poeûy; but Moore's work only seems to offer quotations that disfigure speech, images that dissolve, and endings that solve nothing. Moreover, she seems to withdraw her voice fiom her work. Voice is important to readers and critics, because it connects hem to the pet. Recail that Tim Moms, in bis

1995 book Becoming Cmonicaf in Americm Poetry, argues that in the Arnerican poetic tradition, the stronger the presence, or voice of pets within their work, the more value it receives. foets who do mt appear to be present in their work are thereby rendering their work less valuable. Those texts that seem to best express the voice of the pet receive more critical acclaim, and are therefore guaranteed a place within the literary canon'

' For a more detailcd discussion of thc "poctics of phsence" and its historical relation to literary canon, sec Moms' book Becoming Crm,mcal in Americon Po- (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995). Much of Moore's poetry, whde descriptive, is highly cornplex. Because it more readily

displays the tensions of seemingly conflicting ideas and of contradictory hagery, it is

sometimes difficult to recow, or even hdMoore's voice in the resulthg confusion.

Moore's heavy reliance on quotations in the formation of her poetry, dong with her focus on issues such as humility and silence, has been disconcerting for some feminist cntics, who have perceived her technique as a retreat behind othen' voices, and thus concluded that Moore was overly passive. But in this apparent absence of poetic voice, there is a voice. Carefirl analysis of Moore's quotation poew will show that she does not withdraw her voice and hide behind other's words, but manipulates her selected material to achieve her own poetic ends. Moore's refusal to be a confessional or openly autobiographical poet is not an expression of her subrnission, but of her hdamental belief tbat strength cornes hmrestraint. Once the notions of the "poetics of presence" are rejected, and we realize that Moore's voice is present, a different woman emerges fiom her poetry. Moore, in fact, was a feminist. Carefiil analysis of the poem

"Marriage" will provide readers with a strong sense of Moore's individual feminist politics?

An example of the perceived wiîhdrawai of Moore's poetic voice f?om her work can be found in her most famous and rnost often anthologized poem, "Poetry." For critics in swch of confessionai poetry, this one is bnic and unsettling. Her most mernorable statement on poetry is that she herself does not like it:

îhere have btm more cecent madings of Mmby some feminist critics who do cead Moore as a feminist For example, sec Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's hersfi.om the Front, Vol, 3 of No Mm's Lond: 71ie Pkeof the Woman W- in the Twentieth Centwy (New Haven: Yak University Press, 1988). "Poetry"

1, too, dislike it. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one dis- covets in it, after all, a place for the genuine. (Conpiete Poems, 36)

This poem fiustrates critics in search of the pet's voice. luhasq for example, fin& it to

be "both dazzling and impenetrabie," and "the ironyn to be "so thick that it bristles." a

comment not too far tiom Eliot's declaration of Moore's fiigidity (49-50). It is difficult

for readers to discem wbat Moore's intentions are with this poem. On one han& "Poetryw

expresses Moore's desire for, and obvious belief in an original tnith, for something

"genuine." Yet, she never really defines whaî it is thai she does not like. Her avoidance

of the noun "poetry" within the body of the text is confiising, and it is never absolutely

clear whether this is the "it" she refers to, or whether "it" is actually un-genuine poetry.

Moore's own position is equally unclear, as her dislike is betrayed by her discovev of the

genuine-something that shouid bring pleasurp. This final 1967 version is drasticaüy

pared down fiom the original thirtyeight iine poem that she retained only as notes to the

final version (Cornpiete Poents, 226-7). In fact, Moore altered îhis poem almost every time she published it, making it even more cünicult to understand her point of view? The sentiment in ali versions, however, while at times describing her "dislike" more tirlly, remains the same. What it seems to reveal about Moore herself, however, is a dislike of her own work. For rnany, the lack of poetic presence in "Poetry" bas rendered it to be

3 1 am not going to discuss hm alteration in any detail for this thesis. For a good analysis of tht history of Moore's changes to "Potîq", sec Bonnie Honigsblum's "Marianne Moore's Revisions of 'Poetry'" and Jeffery D. Peterson's "Notes on tk Poern(s) 'Poctry': The ïngenuity of Moore's Poctic 'Place'", both in Mirianne Moore Womun: and Pcr. cd. Patricia C. Willis. hm:The National Poetxy Fornidation. 1990. merely an arnusing and ironic example of Moore's wit, and consequently of little critical

value.

Quotations

The combination of arnbiguity within Moore's work, and her own apparent

dissatisfaction about it, is disconcerting for readers; equally disconcerting for her readers

can be her method of using quotaîions in her poeûy. Moore's extensive and consistent

use of quotations within her work is one of the most distinctive methods she used to

separate her voice fiom her work. Quotation marks Litter her poems, and obstruct the

reader's ability to comprehend. Aside hmthe initial obstruction of the flow of reading,

their purpose seems indecisive. For exarnple, the reader cannot be assured that Moore

endorseci the material she quotes. The quotation marks themselves merthe ambiguity,

since they could signal dialogue, suggest irony, or mark off tities. Some critics insist that

quotation requires a precise repetition of a source, and believe that there is only a

jutapositional quality to Moore's quotational poetry. Mers, however, believe that she is

iatentionally utilizing a modem collage or mosaic technique? There would seem to be

some relation between the quoted material and the shape it would take in her work,

however, for when asked about her quotations in an interview with Donald Hall, Moore

answered:

I was just trying to be honorable and not steal things. I've always felt that

- ~- 4 See Leonard Diepcvan, for example, in Chging Voi'ces: The Modern Qwting Puem, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993, who consider Moore's quotations to bc only juxtapositional in nature. Bonnit Costello, in lmugimry Possessions also bclieves that for the most part Moore is pasting togethcr ûagments of differcnt material with only paratactic relation. Lynn Keller, however, argues that Moore actually "works the pieces of diverse contexts into a cohcsive whole," and the rcsult is not paratactic but intertextual. Keller, thmefore, phfers to use the tcrm 'mosaic' ovcr 'collage' to describe Moore's technique (220). Moore herself refers to her method of quoting as "a mosaic of quotations" in her essay "Idiosyncrasy and Technique" (Complete Prose, 5 12). if a thing bas been said in the very best way, how can you say it better? If 1 wanted to say somethhg and somebody had said it ideally, then I'd take it but give the person credit for it. (Interview, 30)

Arguably, then, the material Moore chose to include in her woric was that which

expressed something she had already wanted to say, even if extracted hma different

original context.

Most critics agree, however, that what Moore did with her quoted material is

distinctly different fiom the other modern poets who incorporate quoted material into

their texts did. For example, Moore selects material that is aimost exclusively in English,

while Pound's Cantos and Eliot's The Wizste iund are pretentiously multilinguai. Unlike

Pound and Eliot again (altbough arguably Iike Williams), her source matenal largely cornes fiom non-canonical and not scholarly works-she wodd pick out phrases that stnick her as interesting hmnewspapers, conversations, advertisements and private letters, and save them in her notebook for future use. Her eclectic and seemingly random mixing of these sources amongst her own thoughts, evokes creative playfûiness that resembles collage. Incorporation of cited material in her work, does little to elevate or enhance i$ nor does it place her in the context of a Westem iiterary tradition5 T. S. Eliot, by cornparison, with his broad incorporation of material hmcanonical works of

Westem literature in Ttre Wmte Lmtd, simultaneously places himself squarely within in the tradition of Western iiterature. It would appear that Moore is more concerned with stylistic effect, wMe Eliot is maLuig an ostentatious statement about his position within

- - 5.Crisianne Miller, in Mwiruae Mmm: (hrP-rtinns of ArrtIroril)., notes that somc work has becn done to show that Moore in fact does bni to Hebrcw poctry and philosophy, Miller bclicves tiiat in this Moore (and other modcrnist poets) L.~pcnlydistinguishcs her coristnrtions of authority fmm those of wcstcm literary tradition." Still, this is an area that rcquircs more sady, ancf will not bc discussed fiather in this thesis. (Sec Miller, 3, and accompanying note 4). the canonO6Sorne feminist critics, however, argue that Marianne Moore's w of

quotation only separates her voice fmm her poems, and hence, if we subscribe to the

"poetics of presence," out of the literary canon as well. As Juhasz charges, Moore's

quotations work to "provide attitudes and pass judgements for which she is not personally

responsible"; the woman is thereby separated hmher work (48).

Admittedly, it is difficult to always understand what Marianne Moore is trying to

achieve stylistically through her use of quotation. Moore's accompanying notes do littie

to help-they cite only the source, if they are provided at aL7 An example of Moore's

collage technique can be seen in the poem "No Swan so Fine":

"No Swan So Fine"

'No water so still as the dead fountains of Versailles.' No Swan, with swart blind look askance and gondoliering legs, so fine as the chintz china one with fawn- brown eyes and toothed gold collar on to show whose bird it was.

Lodged in the Louis FiAeenth candelabrum-tree of cockscomb- tinted buttons, dahlias, sea urchins, and everlastings, it perches on the branching foam of polished sculptured flowers-at ease and taU. The King is dead. (CompfetePoemr, 19)

WhiIe there are notes accompanying this poem, they do little to inform the reader. Moore

For more detailed analysis of the diffcrcnces bawrcn Moore's, Pound's, Eliot's and Williams' uses of quotation, see Taf@ Marîin, M'Moore, SubwMive ModeniUr,John Slatin, The Srn,age'k Romance: the Poetry of Marianne Moore, and Dicpeve.cn, Chging Voicer: The Modain Quotahg Poem. ' Moore's pam "Bowls," for eumpk. sontains two immcd quotations, %y do 1 like hierbcücr than sumer?" and "appcar the first of the monthl and dhppcar btfore one has had rime to buy it unless on takes proper pmcauîion," which arc not refercnccd ("Bowls," Complete Poemr, 59). refers to "a pair of Louis XV candelabra with Dresden figures of swans belonging to

Lord Balfour," and she notes that the first two lines corne fiom a 1931 Nau York Times

Magmine article (CompfetePoem, 264). But, there is no guide provided to indicate the

context fiom which the original quote came, and as a result, the tone or voice of the

subsequent sentence is ambiguous. 1s it meant to be naïve, ironic, or regretfiil? The real

fountaia of Versailles is serene, although dead like its king, while the reaf swan is

assumed to be a rather clumsy cornparison to the artificial one depicted in the elegant

candelabra's scene. The poem can be read as an ironic charge agakt artifice and in

support of the real-life swan's imperfections. On the other han4 the beauty of the

fabricated Swan, while static, outlasts even its creators. Since much depends on the tone

of the opening lines, the notes do littie to aid interpretation. While this may be part of

Moore's intended design, such absence of authorid assistance has irritated many over the years. Again, mny interpret it as Moore reîreating hmher work; ber voice seems absent,

Moore's densest use of quotaîions can be found in the poerns she wmte in the menties. Perhaps the most complex and representative work of Marianne Moore's

"collage" technique is her also her largest poem, "An Octopus." Throughout this poem,

Moore denies readers the possibility of sustained orientation, or identification with a centrai subject. The opening is as follows:

"An Octopus"

of ice. Deceptively reserved and flat it lies "in grandeur and in massn beneath a sea of shifüng snow dunes; dots of cyclamen-red and maroon on its clearly defined pxudo-podia made of glas that will bend-a much needed invention- comprising twenty-eight ice fields hmfifty to five-hundred feet thick of unimagined delicacy. "Picking periwinkles fiom the cracks" or killing prey with the concentric crushing rigor of the python, it hovers forward "spider fashion on its am"misleadingly like lace; its "ghostiy pailor changing to the green metallic tinge of an anemone-starred pool." (Compiete Poems, 7 1)

The title and the first Iine are the same, and although it seems to refer initially to an

octopus, the poem quickly sbifls with the description of the glacier tbat lurks "beneath a

sea of shifting snowdunes." Then, we corne to realize that the opening of the poem in

fact is referring to the Nisqually Glacier on Mount Rainier. The shift in ou.

understanding of the central subject which mw appears to be the glacier, is unsettling ad

interferes with, rather tban intensifies, our comprehension of the scene. Sirnilar shifts

occur throughout the poem, as the centrai subject is metamorphosing fiam the real

mountain, to a conceptual mountain, and eventually to a discussion of the nature and

stability of descriptive language itself. In the opening of "An Octopus," Moore's

quotations Merîhis disorientation, because ber selections acîuaüy do evoke their

original source. In her notes to the poem, Moore cites among her diverse sources the

Iiiulroted London News and London Grqhic, both king articles on octopodes, dong

with W. D. Wilcox's ï%eRoc&ies, and the Department of the interior's The NaZio~f

Purh Portfofio (1922) guidebook for Mount Rainier (Compfete Poems, 273-4). The

guidebook for Mount Rainier itself characterizes the Nisqually Glacier as a glacial octopus; however, Moore takes the likening Mer,drawing out specific similarities between the two distinct environments of sea and ice octopodes, in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to disrupt out understanding. For example, Moore uses the quotation

6om the Mount Rainier guidebook, "in graadeur and in mass" while readers are still

under the impression that the subject of the poem is an octopus; once one understands

that the glacier is the real subject, Moore then selects quotations hmthe articles on the

octopus to describe the glacier. The green-tinged '"anemone-starred pool"' in its original

source materiai. for example, is describing a d octopus's envïronment8; however, since

anemone is also tbe name for a common alpine her,it caa also invoke the mountain

scene. Moore chooses a quotation hmher source matenal to show how the glacier is

animated as well, "'picking periwinkles hmthe cracks,'" again a quotation which

obviously illustrates an octopus's movement. It is not just the reader's perspective of the

central subject that is fluid; the glacier itself mutates back and forth. The "pseudo-podia"

of the octopus are dotted with "cyclamen-red and maroon," the cyclamen flower again

invoking the land environment and blurring our perspective. As Bonnie Costello notes,

"a certain quantum of power" in this poem "comes simply hmthe verbal disorientation

identified with visual disorientation" (Ill~3~nm-yPossessionr," 82). Clearly, Moore

scrupulously studied both the mountain's environment, and the marine habitat and behaviour of the octopus, with the intention of disallowing her readers even a tenuous

fôothold on her analogies. Ambiguity is clearly her intent, and her specific selection of quoted materiai ai& in that confurion. Consequently, readers are so disoriented by this poem and its multiple layers of intentional obscurity, that Moore's poetic voice appears even more absentsg

The sea-ancmone is a marinc invertcbratc. Very few critics seem eagcr to anaiyzc Moore's "An Octopus." Evcn Moore scholars limit their analysis to a few lins, or makc only passing comment to it as an cxample of Moore's collage technique. Granted, exploration of the poem in its entirety is a formidable rmdcrtakuig. Patricia Willis, in The Road to Humility and Rcstrrint

inspiration for Marianne Moore's poeûy kquently came fkom her unique

conception of humility and restraint. Anyone familiar with Moore's criticism and poetry

quickly becomes aware that humility (and its corollaries restraint and silence) is her

favorite virtue. Yet, it is this humility that many critics take issue with, because they

interpret it as another withdrawal of her voice. What they do not seem to understand is

that Moore's notion of humility is not one of passive retreat, but the means by which an

individual gamers strength. in her essay "Humility, Concentration and Gusto," Moore

writes that she found a particuiar author to be "a phenomenon of eloquence because of

the quiet objectiveness of his writing" (Comptete Prose, 420). Objective simplicity

should be upheld as virtuous, over ~e~aggrandizingomamentation. Moore, while

commenting on Caxton's humility, asks whether

. . .mything could be more persuasive than the preface to his Aeneid, where he says, 'Some desired me to use old and homeiy terms. . . and some the most curious termes that 1 could fjmde. And thus between playn, rude and curyous, I stand abasshed?' (CornpIete Prose, 420).

Style and self-interest are at odds in Caxton's preface. and good writing and self-

consciousness would seem to be linked in Moore's opinion. What is interesting,

however, is her notion that the '?hree foremost ai& to persuasion which occur to me are

humility, concentration and gustow(Comptete Prose, 420). Humility is persuasive, and therefore empowering; it is not an end, but a muas of motivation and expression.

Paradise: First Notes on Marianne Moore's 'An Octopus,'" in Twentteth Centwy Lireratwe 30.m (Sumner 1984-Fa11 1 9%4),explicates many of the images central to the poem, using Moore's own prllnary matcnals and notes. Nevertheless, the best analysis of this pocm, remairu thai of Bonnie Costcllo, in ImLlgi~iy Possessiom, in which she rigorously explores the tensions the pocm imposes bctwecn words and things, and image and dity, as well as the tensions Moore works into the structure of the pocm itself. Humility and reserve are not passive, but active and necessary modes of response. She

writes:

Humility, inâeed, is armor, for it realizes that it is impossible to be original, in the sense of doing something that bas never been done before. Originaiity is in any case a by-product of sincerity; that is to say, of feeling that is honest and accordingly rejects anything that might cloud the impression, such as unwcessay commas, modifying clauses, or delayed predicates. (Complete Prose, 420-2 1)

Hudity, which maintains the ideai of simpiicity and objectiveness, ahmaintains

sincerity which will not force an idea into a dishonestly neat structure. Humiiity, then,

retùses to be false. It is Moore's belief in the protective nature of humility that becomes

fodder for much of her poetry.

Humility, in Moore's poetry, acts as self-protection, or annor. For example, in

"To A Snail," the snail's contcactility becomes its greatest virtue.

If ucompression is the first grace of style," you have it. Contractility is a virnie as modesty is a virtue. It is not the acquisition of any one thing that is able to adorn, or the incidental quality that occurs as a concomitant of something weii said, that we value in style, but the principle that is hid: in the absence of feeî, "a method of conclusions"; "a knowleâge of priaciples," in the curious phenornenon of your occipital hom. (Complete Poemr, 85)

This poem is a good example of Moore's ironic playiùiness. The snail, a creature typically construed as slow and graceless, is trausformed into something of dynamic beauty. It is not the outward sheii of the sdthat is protective, but its ability to retract into it. The cumbersome shell is not its armor; it is protected by its hidden principle of patience. The "absence of feet" in the snail does not inhibit it. The snail's abiIity to retract, a benefit of having no feet, is not a deficiency but a "curious phenornenon" which gives it strength and vitality.

Moore similarly shows the benefits of restraint in the poem "His Shieldw:

The pin-swin or spine-mine (the edgehog miscailed hedgehog) with ail his edges out, echidna and echinoderm in distressed- pin-cushion thcm-fbr coats, the spiny pig or porcupine the rhino with homed snout- everything is battle-dressed.

Pig-Fur won't do, I'll wrap myself in salamander-skin like Resbyter John. A Ii;r=rtli in the midst of flames, a fïrebrand that is Life, asbestos-eyed asbestos-eared, with tattooed nap and permanent pig on the instep; he can withstand

£ire and won? drown. In his unconquerable country of unpompous gusto, gold was so common none considered it; greed and flaüery were unknown. Though rubies large as tennis- balls conjoined in streams so that the mountain seemed to bleed,

the inextinguishable salamander styled himself but presbyter. His shield was his humility. In Carpasian linen coat, flanked by his house-hold lion-cubs and sable retinue, he revealed a formula derthan

an armorer's: the power of relinquishing what one would keep; that is freedom. Become dinosaur- skulled, quilied or salamander-wooled, more bon-shod and javelin-dressed than a hedgehog baîîaiion of steel, but be dd. Don't be envied or anned with a measuring-rod, (Compiete Poem, 144) This poem is fkequently citeci as an example of Moore's notion of humility as arrnor, because it articulates it directly. Warning against greed and flattery (both fomis of self- promotion), Moore clairns that mie 6eedom is fodin "the power of relinquishing what one would keep." Ln this poem, Moore contrasts the two possibihties for armor, the outward spines of the hedgehog, and tbe asbestos armor of the salamander. The armor of the "pig-fur" is too outwardly aggressive and fiightens thgsaway. The asbestos-like

"salamander-skia," on the other han& WUnot drown, and cm survive in 6re. Armor should not ody protect, but sustain the self in the experience. It is important that the salamander does not extinguish but endures the 6re, because in this it is able to conquer the fïre. Costello notes that for Moore, the sîrength obtained hmhumility is aaalogous to a bow king "pulled back in order to caqthe amw farther when it is released" ("The

'Ferninine' Language of Marianne Moore," 93). The elusive strength of the snail or the salamander is analogous to the elusiveness of her own writing.

The elusiveness of Moore's writhg style is revealed in her poem ''In This Age of

Hard Trying. . ."

"In This Age of Hard Trying, Nonchalance is Good and"

b'reaüy,it is not the business of the gods to bake clay pots." They did not do it in this instance. A few revolved upon the axes of their worth as if excessive popularity rnight be a pot;

they did not venture the profession of humility. The polished wedge that might have split the firmament was durnb. At last it thriew itself away and falling domconfemed on some poor fool, a privilege.

"Taller by the length of a conversation of five hundred years than al1 the others," there was one whose tales of what could never bave been actual- were better than the haggish, uncornpanionable drawt

of certitude; his by- play was more terrible in its effkctiveness than the fiercest fiontal attack. The staff, the bag, the feigned inconsequence of manner, best bespeak that weapcm, self-pmtectiveness. (Complete Poems, 34)

Again, humility is a more effective and irnpenetrable meam of self-protection than aggression. This "inconsequence of manner" is not weakness, but coascious reserve, which iike the snail's contractility acts like a reservoir of hidden pwer. This poem is equdly interesting in that Moore's own prosaic or conversational tone also gives an impression of her own restraint. As Bonnie Costello notes, Moore seems to suggest that she is not "writing anything so grand as a poemn (" 'Ferninine' Language," 92). Still,

Costello ad&, "the design is present, though unobtmsive, acting on our imaginations almost without alerting us" (92). An overt self-assertion on her part would negate the poem's driving point. The vitality and value of this poem is the modest manner in which it leads us to the paradoxical but logicai conclusion that the humble have more pwer than even the gods.

in al1 of these examples, it is important to note that Moore's notion of humility is that this conscious holding back of something, otherwise known as restraint, is an active respoase and a powerful maneuver. This understanding can also be related to the holding back of her poetic voice. Moore's poem "Silence" exemplifies this conception.

"Silence"

My father used to say. 'Superior people never make long visits, have to be shown Longfeilow's grave or the giass flowers at Harvard. Self-reliant like the cat- that takes its prey to privacy, the mouse's limp tail hanging like a shoelace hmits rnouth- they sometimes enjoy solitude, and can be robbed of speech by speech which has delighted them. The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence but restraint.' Nor was he insincere in saying, 'Make my house your hm.' Inns are not residences. (Complete Po-, 9 1)

The notion that the "deepest feeling" is in fact "restraint" in itself is revealing about

Moore's beliefs. What is even more valuable about this work is that the poem itself becomes an exercise in the very restraint that it advises. Initial examination of the poem reveals the apparent restraint in the speaker's speech, in that it stresses the father's opinion, and not her own. The quotations in "Silence" also imply tbat Moore herself is restrained here-that her voice is hidden behind another. The £üst quoted phrase cornes f?om a Miss A. M. Homaus, and the second hmEdrnund Burke in Bu& 's Life

(Complete Poemr, 276). The quotation marks in this poem, then, seem to mark the reticence of the poet herseK. For critics who limit theü examination of this poem to this point, this is aii the evidence they need to support theü conclusion that Moore has separated her poetic voice, and thus herself. hmthe poem. This poem is more cornplex, however, and requires a more carefid dysis. It is important to note that Moore altered the material she bomwed for this poem. The original quotation hmMiss Homans actually included the phrase '%y father used to say," which Moore did no? indicate as a quotation within the poem. She also altered Burke's phrase quite hlyto express her own ironic play on the fathef s beliet l0 Eluabeth ûregory, in her paper "'Silence' and

Restraint," argues tbat these notes suggest Moore's "double attitude of simultaneous self- effacement and assertionw(Gregory, 175). The quotations do indicate that the words are indeed borrowed; however, the variation between the original and the version Moore actually included establishes her cornmand over the material, and thus her authorship of the ideas expressed in the poem. So, in spite of the initial appearance that her voie has retreated &om this pwm, it is adySn firll effect. In this silence, we indeed do hear her deepest feeling-in this poem about silence, it is her voice that has the finai word.

Mwre's hinaility, combined with the difficulty that casud readers encounter when reading her worlc, causes her voice to seem absent or withdrawm This in tum bas been interpreted by some to repmsent her submission to the mciologicai pressures of her tirne, by playing down herself in her work. As Juhasz would argue, since Moore withdraws herselc ber work is less valuable than confessionai poeûy of other writers.

Many feminist Mitics wodd prefer to read the work of fedepoets who are confessional, autobiographical or openly rebellious to social pressures. Barbara Gelpi, for example, in an othewise valuable essay writes that Moore is among those writers

. . . who seem in ignorance or in complete unconscio~essof the histoncal and culturd pressures under which they live and work, an unconsciousness that. . . can only takenj to be in some obscure way willed by the extreme selfdoubt and. . . fear of self-investigation that attempts to suppress rather than assimilate the lessons of history. ("A Common Language: The American Woman Poef" 270)

IO Moore's notes to "Silence" cite Edmund Burke's original sritemmt as only: "'nirow yor~sclfinto a coach. . . .Corne down and makt my house your inn'" (Complete Pwms, 276). Gelpi's assessment is unjustified, however, because it is just such pressures on women that Moore examines in many of her works, and most specifically in her poem

"Marriage."

"Marriage" is a vaiuable work which expresses Moore's feminist politics. Next to

"An Octopus," it is her longest and most complex poems anci such effort in itself suggests that it is more representative of her personally than ber other wok The background of the poem is Bryher's marriage to Robert McAlmon, in which Moore was deeply involved. Moore was also involved in comforting Brykr's lover H. D. about the marriage, and Moore's letters to her reflect the uneasimss about the situation!' Her poem "Maniage," then, can be seen as the forum in which Moore explained her own parîicular perceptions about wedlock. "Marriage," however, is a poem thai bas been difficult for critics to deal with. These problems have aiready been ailuded to in the first chapter of this thesis. Recaii, that R P. Blackmur found that the la& of any "element of sex or lust" in "Mdage" was disconcerting ("The Methoci of Marianne Moore," 85). III

1925, William Carlos Williams wmte how he was haunted by the poem, and the fact that

"there is no solution" to maniage in it, and "no attempt to make marriage beautifid or otherwise by poetic treatment" ("Marianne Moore," 400). He notes that there is "a distaste for Lingering, as in Emily Dickinson" (that other notorious virgin pt), and "a fastidious precision of thought"; however, he remarks, there is "no breast that wanns the bars of heaven: it is at most a swiftness that passes without repugnance fiorn thing to thing" (396). Although he always encouraged Moore's poetic rebellion, he does not acknowledge her claims within the poem regarding women's desire for intellectual

" For more dctailed nading of the history of the pocm. sec Barbara Guest, Herser&$ned: The Poet H. D. and Her World, (New York: Doublday, 1984). independence. He refuses to engage the poem's morality, and ultirnately labels the poem swif't, detached, and perhaps even uorprdable. This is the appmach to readhg the poem which became the standard by which it would be read-or more precisely, not read. As

David Bergman notes in his 1988 essay "Marianne Moore and the Problem of

'Marriage,'" Williams' appmach to the work has "convinced decades of critics that

'Marriage' is an unreadable poem," and in avoiding if critics bave "avoided the fact that

Moore was. . . a fonvinced fdstu(Brrgman. 247-8).12

''Maniage" is a difficult poem to rad. First, it is one of Moore's longest works, and as CostelIo notes, its narrow, eamiined structure over many pages "speeds up the train of associated epiîhets and mottos" (11110~- Possessionr, 175). As always,

Moore's use of quotaîion is extensive, adding to its perceived difficulty, and fùrther separating Moore hmîhe poem. Costelio refers to this poem specifically as "a collection of £lies in amber," (a phrase coined by Moore herself), consistent with her notion of Moore's random use of qwtations in forming her poetic collage (1mugircrry

Possessions, 175). Furthering her own belief that Moore's use of material serves more as a "mosaic," Lynn Keller makes a cornpelling argument that Moore's selection of materid

12 Although critics are more codortable in analyzllig "Marriagewthan "An Octopus," not everyom accepts it as a feminist poem- Hclen Vendla's article on Moore, for example, argues that "Marriage" is a satiric comedy, but hcr focus ori Moore's humor tails to acbiowlcdge the work's more moral qualitics (set Vendler's "Marianne Moore," in Mmiarrrie Moorc. Harold Bloom, cd, New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987). Juhasz notes that it is the only pomby Moore explicitly about worncn, but cannot get past her conviction that WlÎt such ferninine activity has nothing to do with hcf' (Mas%37). Bdsy Erldcila's The WicMSisren bricfly alludes to the poem as "a critiquc of masculine phnmiption," yct dso fails to acknowledge the elemcnts that promote women (104). Al1 of these rcâdings of Moore insinuatc that a true expression of femininity is fimQmmtallyscxual in nature. ïhcy al1 imply that Moom dOeS not write what 'she ought to." A good rrading of "Marriage" as a fcminist poem can k found in Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's Lettmfiom the Fmnt, Vol. 3 of No Man 's Land Ine Place ofthe Womm Wrirer h the Twentîeth Ce-, howevcr, it is a too rapid and sweeping îratment of the wo* thaî while perceptive, still begs for a more detailcd rrding. More satisfLing and extensive Itadlllp of "Marriage" can bc found in TmMartin's Marianne Moore, Subversive Mb&mirt9 and David Bergman's "Marianne Mmand the Problem of 'Mamage.'" in this particular work serves a more cohesive whole. It is meaningfûi that Mwre chose to mode1 her Adam and Eve on the characters of Milton's Paradise Lost, for example, and that many of her quotations come hmother original sources that discussed dage or women directly. Keller claims that some of Moore's quoted material thereby "expands her subject rnatter and the intellectual context for her arguments about marriage" because they refer to it in their original contexts; in this, Keller argues, Moore is implicitly locating marriage "within the sociocultural and historicai contexts as well as mythic ows and raises issues of gender that extend well beyond that institution" (220-1). Moore's careN selection of relevant sources makes "Matriage" an intertextual work, which is quite distinct hmmost of ber jmetic product.13 As a result, "Marriage" becomes a more consequential work by Mwre, and arguably her extra effort insinuates that it is also more representative of her personal feelings than most of her other work. in spite of ber apparent absence, Moore's feminist politics is quite present in this Fm.

A Reading of "Marriage"

What is immediately unsettling in reading "Marriage," is Moore's variable use of pronouns. For the most part, the poem is a nanative, wîth what is arguably Moore's voice acting as the third person narrator. The female perspective in the poem is not given directly by Moore, but either by Eve or the modem woman. keeping Moore separate fiom the dialogue at hand. In fact, in the very openhg of the poem her use of the pronoun

"one" separates her hmthe subject completely. Since the topic is marnage, it is logical

l3 One could question whether Moore's seleaion of source matenal for hcr quotations in "An Octopus," is also intertextual; howcvcr, Moore's intention in that pxm is to disnipt her undcrsianding, and not to form a cohesive whole. that she, the unmarried, should choose to do so. It is wbat we, as readers, should expect

£iom Moore. She uses the pronom "one" again fiom lines 2434 when judging the

narcissistic behaviour of modem man and woman, again keeping herself detached from

the condition. What is significant in this poem, however, is that Moore actually does slip,

albeit briefly, into the first person between Lines 9-30, and in liw 179. It is conceivable

that Moore is coasciously taking a bold stance in this poem, in challenging the standard

notion of rnarriage as a revered and sought after condition, suggesting instead that it is

one which requires "al1 one's criminai ingenuity to avoidW-an interesting statement fiom

a woman who har successfbily avoided marriage herself ("Mamage," 16).14

One contention in the interpretation of "Marnage" is wtiether it condones

marriage or dismisses it as an impossibility. Fmm the beninnina, ùIstead of celebrating

the traditional union betweem a man and woman, Moore's poem "Maniage" appears to be

dismissing it as an institution. It opens:

This institution, pethaps one should say enterprise out of respect for which one says one aeed mt change one's mind about a thing one has believed in, requiring public promises of one's intention to tùlfil a private obligation. (1-8)

Marriage, for Moore, is dismissed as a business venture between two people, wnïcal because it should have ken kept private. There is no sex in this poem, as Blackmur noted, because that Upnvateobligation" is no longer the central issue. Society, it seems to Moore, has attached absurd assumpttions and expectations to wbat marriage should be, leading those involved to believe that it will Mnll something which it cannot. In this

14 Al1 rcfexnces to "Marriage" arc to Camplere Poemr, pages 62-70. opening, Moore is intent on deflating the myths about marriage and the sexes. In the following passage, Moore comments directly on the state of marriage as it exists today,

1 wonder what Adam and Eve think of it by this time, this fire-gilt steel dive with goldemess; how btight it shows- "of circular traditions and impostures, committing many spoils," requiring all one's crimiaal ingenuity to avoid! Psychology which explains everythhg explains nothing, and we are still in doubt. (9-20)

Would the origïnai couple, Adam and Eve, be surprised at the pageantry and expectations that are now a part of the inception of this institution? Certainly, it is not a part of their tradition and myth. Moore heightens the irony, noting that the bbgoide~esswof contemporary mageis not real gold, but really hot, bard "steel." Marriage today is fidl of "impostures" and "circular traditions" which lead to nothing. Not only would

Adam and Eve wodd doubt the efficacy of modem marriage, Moore argues, we are still in 'bdoubt7'about the business of mamage. Whüe this poem will go on to throw out the ancient myths, there is an imrnediate reMto substitute for them any new myth, such as psychological reasonùlg. Marriage has been reduced to a traasaction, and the vows, in . the end, resort to the illogical rhetoric of a political union:

'Liberty and union now and forever';

the Book on the writing table; the hand in the breast-pocket. (286-289) Cmthere be both liberty and union within a marriage? 1s marriage in fact a union

between equals? Moore suggests at one point that in a marnage '"some have merely rights/ while some have obligations'" (232-3). which implies it to be an unequal and

interdependent relationship, and negates the possibility of simultaneous fieedorn and union. Marriage is reduced. Hymen is diminished hmgoddess to "a kind of overgrown cupid.," and "tbat experiment of Adam's" now involves "mechanical advertisiog*' and empty, lavish rituals (1 30- 137). But was it ever otherwise?

Moore's poetic represenbtion of Eden and the prelapsarian man and woman in

"Mamiage" is the key to understanding her hdamental ferninist politics. Moore imagines the arche- couple in a Miltonian fashion, as many of the lines invoke

Paradise Lost. Moore's Adam and Eve exist in Milton's grand and splendomus Eden:

Below the incandescent stars below the incandescent fit, the strange experience of beauty its existence is too much. (35-38)

Yet the hierarchical relationship between the pair *ch Milton describeci is undermineci in Moore's paradise. Miltton's Eve addresses Adam as

O thou for whom And fiom Whom 1 was form'd flesh of thy flesh, And without whom am to no emà, my Guide and Head. (Milton, Pmcldke Lost, IV, 44043)

Moore, on the other han& ûansforms Milton's words into an ironic epithet that describes

Adam as "the O thod to whom, hmwhom,/ without whom nothing-Adam" (624).

Furthemore, in Moore's poem it is Eve, and not Adam, who enters first, and it is Adam who seems subordinated to Eve; Adam bornes the "visiter*' in her garden (32). Eve is described as "so handsome," while Adam "has beauty also" (23,61). The tradition of

Eve as "the central flaw/ in that first crystal-fine expriment" is included in the poem

(43-4), yet Moore ultimateIy makes Eve the hem, the "invaluable accident" that

exonerates Adam (59-60). It is Eve who brought us knowledge so that Adam did not

have to. Eve is not the destroyer of mankind's Edenic bliss, but the one wbo saved us

fkom ignorance. in "Marriage," it is Adam wfia is the snake, described as '"something

feiine, something coiub~e,'"the "muchhg mythological monstef' who is the seducer

of Eve, and the representative of evil(65-67).

Prelapsarian Eve is the multilinguai writer, the creative force within this poem.

She is "able to write sirnultaneouslyl in thtee languages. . ./ and talk in the meantime"

(25-8). Meanwhile, "Adam, Me"alive with words," is not in control of them, as he vibrates "like a cymbaU touched before it bas been stnick" (74-76). Eve is "equally positive in demanding a commotion/ and in stipulating quiet" (29-30), MeAdam

. . . goes on speaking in a customary strah, of 'pst States, the present state, sds, promises, the evil one suffered, the good one enjoys, hell, heaven everything convenient to promote one's joys. (90-97)

It is Moore's Eve who bas fùil command of language, while Adam only has the language of command. Significantly, Eve's fïrst words are "1 shouid like to be doue," which offers immediate insight into her own sense of individuaiity (3 1). Adam, however, cannot understand Eve, and responds to her with "1 should like to be done;/ why not be alone together" (33-34). Adam misunderstands Eve, and his repetition belittles Eve's own expression of her individuality. He aiso overlwks the fact that she has "a quality of

mind" which "is unsafe" to his notion of togethemess (85-88). He "perceives what it was

not intended that he should," and takes joy in his belie f that Eve idolizes him (99- 102).

Evenhially, the silence of the nightiagale (who is conceivably representative of Eve

henelf) disconcerts Adam, who is thereby rendered incapable of any action. The

plurality of the nightingale's silence, like the plurality of Eve's language, plages Adam,

and "clothes [bim] with a shiri of fire" (1 03-8). Adam is "unnerved by the nightingalel

and dazled by the apple," and in his confusion fails to avoid faiiing (1 15-6). Adam

. . . stumbles over niamage, 'a very trivial object indeed' to have destroyed the attitude in which he std- the ease of the philosopher datherd by a woman. (124-9)

Adam's passion overwhelms his former philosophical stance and he loses rationality. It

is because he does not understand Eve, and does wt know how to respond to her. that

they fail. Eve is not blameless, for it was she who is "coastrained in speaking of the

serpent-/ shed snakeskin in the history of politeness" (56-8); however, the blame that

traditiody fdson Eve alone (that she causes man's loss of immortality), falls on Adam as well in Moore's interpietation: it is Adam's loss of rationality that le& to the fd.

The reai failure of this "experiment" between Adam and Eve is their failure to communicate -itheach other. Their marriage was an "amalgamation which [could] never be more than an interesthg impossibüity" (456). Yeq in spite of the initiai failure, mariage continues still, and still, we are told, both the snake and the potent apple remain in the "one mapificent hoppef' of the marital ritua1 (1434)). "He" remains stoic, and comrnends rnarriage, or "the fight to be affectionate," as "a fine art," claiming that in spite of the "Wctioa. . . 'no îmth can be Myknown until it has been tried by the tooth of disputation"' (145-61). "She" on the other hand, believes that she must also fight off him, as that

. . . spiked hand that has affection for one and proves it to the boae impatient to assure you that impatience is the mark of independence, not of bondage. (1 68-74)

Still, the "fight for section" coatinues to be confhed with the fight for unity.

There is a debate whether the "He" ad"She" foîlowing line 145 are in fact still

Adam and Eve, or a modem "occidental" pair. It is not inconceivable that the "Hew and

"Shen are Adam and Eve in modem circiunstances. Stiii, there is a definite shift in the poem at line 179, when Moore breaks hmthe narrative on Eden and rnakes a direct commentary on contemporary society. It would seem more likely that she will now discuss modem man and woman ditectly as weîl. She writes "we Occidentals are so unemotionalj [and] self lost," that the irony of the Eden experience remains intact, found now in modem banquets and social gatherings (179-80). For example, the sexes continue to saerthe irnbalance of powet, as the women wiii not receive visitors before five o'clock, and "the men have powerl and sometimes you are made to fêel it" (1 80.93). The tensions of Eden still ktthe cultural traditions as weii, as the serpent still lurks, hidden in the orchid flowers that are Lice "snakes' tongues," and the ironic "quixotic atmosphere of çankness" (1 82; 186).

The subsequeat banter between the modem "He" and "She," who are presumably mamed, is disturbing. TaffL Martin argues that Moore is ridiculhg their "insincere

attempts at communication," where the man and woman's "mistaken approach" results in

verbal warfare in the subsequent "exchange of mechanical non sequinirs" (22). in his attack, the man focuses bmtaiiy on images of death and decay. He cornments on the woman's loss of hair, refers to her as a mummy, and states that "'a wife is a coffin'"

( 194-6; 205-2 11 ). Yet while Moore had previously seemed to support the ptelapsarian

Eve, here she reveals the modern "She" to be eqdypoor as her husband. Her

"impenous humility" (as opposed to Moore's own simere humility) is equally as bad as her husband (188). "Shen cornplains that men are "monopolists. . .udt to be the guardiansl of another persons happiness," calling him %s butterflyJ this waterfly J this nomad," and then asking "what can one do with it?" (220-7). Moore criticizes both for king narcissistic, noting that

he loves himself so much he can permit himself no rival in that love. She loves berself so much she cannot see herself enough. (234-8)

Moore denounces them as "these savaged condemned to disaffect," noting that "one is not rich but poor/ denone can always seem so right" (243-7). They have forgotten that in marriage there is an interdependency in that "'some have merely rights/ while some have obligations"' (232-3). Narcissism for the mamed is not possible because they cannot be independent of each other. "Everything to do with love is a mysteq" (256).

But is mamage thus merely rendered an "interesthg impossibility" also (46)?

Critics are polarized in their interpretation of the ending of "Mamage," and whether Moore intended it to make a positive assessment of the condition of marital union Moore, retuming to the voice of generalities, writes

One sees that it is rare- that striking grasp of opposites opposed to each other, not to unity, which in cycloid inclusiveness has dwarfed the demonstration of Columbus with the egg- a triumph of simplicity- (259-65)

Bonnie Costello, for one, believes that this passage is a testament to Moore's faith in the

possibility of a rare but valuable union. Just as Moore's poerns form a collage out of her

words and othed quotations, Costello believes the rare meedcouples in "Marriage"

are "especially pertinent to the idea of collage," in that they are like "6ragments of other

continuities" thaî pull against each other, yet are capable of forming a cohesive grouping

(Im~~natyPossessioru, 2 12). She believes that those who do not work together have

confiised the "fight to be affectionate" with a fight against each other (157). It is

nevertheless wettling tbat complex problems such as achieving "cycloid inclusiveness"

can only be resolved through destniction-Columbus, for example, broke the egg to prove

that it could stand on end A successful mamage still quires the "charitive Euroclydon"

to admit:

"1 am such a cow, if 1 had a somw 1 should feel it a long tirne; 1 am not one of those who have a great somow in the moming and a great joy at noon." (270-6)

This sacrificial proclamation codd elevate the woman as sacred. As David Bergman notes, the world takes pnde in heroic sacrifice, anci with this proclamation she is sacrificing herself to society, and becoming a martyr to conventionality. Having to

publicly declare oneself a cow, however, is still awtiil and demeaning, especially for a

modem, urbao person. Are these the "public promiseswthat "fultill a private obligation"

that comply with the business venture! that mamage has become (6-8)? Those who

believe that Moore is disrnissing marriage as an institution focus on this. Jeanne

Heuving, for example, in Omissiom Are Not Accidents, argues that while it may be a

public dedaration of "ernotiod fidelity," it could also k mere %acuous braying or

mooing" (1 32). She believes that the juxtaposition of this with the introduction of Daniel

Webster's self-contradictory "Liberty and union" speech works to undercut the value of

the sacrifice. "Maniage" concludes with

. . . "1 have encountered it among those unpreîentious protégés of wisdom whete seeming to parade as the debater and the Roman, the statesmanship of an archaic Daniel Webster persists to their sirnpücity of temper as the essence of the matter:

'Liberty and union now and forever,'

the book on the writing-îable, the hand in the breast pocket." (277-89)

The poem retums in the end to the initial idea that marriage is an institution, and the statue of Daniel Webster becornes the ironic ceremonid utterance of the wedding vows.

As Cristanne Miller notes in Marianne Moore: Questions of Authority, Daniel Webster's historic compromise to save the union by supporting the Fugitive Slave Act wouid not have been lost on Maore, and serves as a mode1 for successful hage:that "one must be williag to compromise even deeply held values to remain in this union" (1 18-9).

Moore's FemiaUt Politics

1s Moore condemning mamage? While Moore's poem appears to condemn the

institutionalized fom of maniage, it may not be condemning the ideal of maniage

between two people. There still Iingers the idea tbat it is rare but possible, thus the

optirnism that CosteUo reads at the beginning of the final segment StiU, even stronger is

the impression thac it is not a viable option for a woman who desires to be independent or creative. Marriage, for women, requires a sacrifice of their fkedom. A woman cannot be alone in miuriage, she can ody be "alone together," forever in the presence of man, her &dom to act as an individual subjugated. It is not possible for a woman to have both intellectual fulfillwnt and a successfùl marriage, a strong sentiment hma woman who appears to have used ail her "criminal ingenuity to avoid itw As David Bergman writes, Moore reveals herself to be "an artist in refking," which perhaps leads more to the point of the poem (Bergman, 253).

Marilyn Brownstein, in her essay on Marianne Moore in The Gender of

Modernkm, perhaps defines Moore's notion of a feminist politics kt. She writes that

Moore's own choice of sexual exclusion was key to ber approach to a personai literary revolution:

Moore chose sexual restraint, chastity as power and independence-a radical choice even now. This is not to argue the impossible-tbat Moore was neither viewed as nor treated as a woman by her contemporaries-but that she negotiated the shoah of sexual politics by self-pmtectively avoiding the compromises of sexuai arrangements. In wbat must be regarded a feminist move, Moore estabüshed mp%ias of her own making in defense agahst hding herself abandoned at alien borders. (328) Moore, in the very act of writing, enacts a liberating alternative to Eve's entrapment.

From the outset of "Marriage" she speaks in the voice of a fiee individual who, alert to

the inconsistencies and ironies of marriage, is able to operate independently of them

within the poem. By cuitivating her humility, Mwre frees herself as an artist, as a

woman, and as an individual. She sets her work up as a defense against the established

institution which would otherwise have subordinated her as a woman. Her peculiar

restraint and sexual independence, which has so disturùed critics, is really the sacrifice

that Moore believes she must make, just as the desert-rat in her poem "Jerboa" must

survive Living in a most hostile environment as the price for rexnaining "hee-b~rn."~~

Such sacrifice is the price of Wom.

This is not to say, however, that Moore was agaïnst marriage altogether for other

women. When asked in 1957 by the Grolier Society whether or not the "net result of

woman's 'coming out of the kitchen' been helpfid or detrimental to society," Moore

responded:

The net result of woman's 'coming out of the kitchen' has been helpfùl, 1 think. Who could regard in any other Light the activities of such women as Florence Nightingale, Susan B. Anthony, Helen Keller, Jane Addams, Katherine E. McBride, Millicent Carey Mcintosh, Margaret A. CIapp, Elizabeth Gray Vig,Marie Curie, Florence Sabin or Eleanor Bliss? With regard to careers outside the home, delegated motherhd can be a threat, for 1 believe tbat our integrity as a nation is bound up with the home. Good children are not the product of mothers who prefer money and fame to the well-king of their families. Did not the Apostle Paul, in his ardor to afZiord Tiothy a steady infiuence, bid him remember his mother, Etmice, and his grandmother, Lois? We dare not regress by suppressing intelligence or forbidding women to be usefirl. But steadfastness, conscience, and the capacity for sacrifice, on the part of both parents, are basic to good family relations which, in twn, are basic to the well-king of society in general. (Complete Prose, 678)

15 See Moore's poem "Thc Jerba," in Complete Pwmr, 10. Moore obviously took the question senously, given the b~adthof her answer. Clearly,

she believes that there are only two possible paths for a woman to take: motherhood, or

complete intellectual independence, and both paths are presumed worthy. But Moore did

not believe that a woman could be successful at both marriage and career. While this

may seem to go against cumnt feminist thinking, it is useful to note that she places the

responsibility of child-management on both parents, not just the mother alone. It is even

more delightfbl to note that not even once does she mention îhe role of a wife as a

possibility, nor any obligations which one should have to a husband. Moore, an

ambitious and creative wo- chose the only path she felt she could follow, the path of

independence. AAer ail, she also once wmte that the "avowed artist must ah,uniess we

are to have fads rather than individuality, be an artist in refùsing" (The Da,80, April

1926,353).

Conciusion

Some feminist critics, such as Suzanne Juhasz, have argwd that "chastity is non-

engagement" because "it leaves one in a position of safety" (Juhncz, 39). This is because

she sees Moore as separaîed hmher work This interpretation, however, subscribes to the value judgments imposed by the "poetics of presence." While Moore's poetic voice

may seem to be absent in her works, it is there, even when intentiodly obscured.

Moore's voice can be foumi, but only with more dogged anaiysis than more generalist critics have employed. The traditional perception of Moore as a submissive spinster is not a fair assessrnent of her or her humility. It implies that she was inactive, when she was clearly not; it implies that she remainecl separate fkom other fernale pets, which again she did not. Moore, in fm actively operated as an independent member within the modemist literary community. Moore's reMto be a confessional or openly autobiographicd poet is not indicative of an unwilhgness to deal with women's experience, nor an expression of her submission to her male peers. A careful analysis of her poetry provides us with a strong sense of her individual feminist politics. Marianne

Moore, like "Eve" in her poem "Mamage," is a multilingual woman, who pmbably could also t& and wrïte sirnultaneously. Eve's first words, "1 should like to be alone," could be a reflection of that desire felt by many women writers, including Moore-the desire to have "a room of one's own." The difference is thaî in the end, Marianne Moore achieved that . Adams, J. Donald. "Speaking of Books." The New York Times Book Review 10 Feb. 1952: VII2.

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