MARIANNE MOORE: THE MODERN POET OF CREATIVE FORCE AND TECHNICAL VIRTUOSITY

The Book, “Marianne Moore: The Modern Poet of Creative Force and Technical Virtuosity”, examines the poetry of Marianne Moore and establishes the fact that she is the modern poet of creative force and technical virtuosity. Among the women American poets of the twentieth century literature, Marianne Moore is undoubtedly one of the most outstanding poets. She is endowed with a deep sense of observation, imagination, concentration and capacity for expression. Her poems are therefore well balanced and are highly objective.

“Modernism” is a term which cannot be easily defined. Yet, one can argue that Marianne Moore is a modern poet in form and content. In her approach towards man, Nature, greater truths and in the manner of composition, she blazes a new trial by introducing new trends. Yet again she is modern in being imagistic, symbolistic and above all by being objective. She is conscious of the difference between Nature and man, and feels that it is irreconcilable. In these and several other ways, she proves to be thematically, structurally and contextually a modern poet. In fact, Marianne Moore was convinced about the futility (for her) of the late Victorian tradition in poetry. Therefore, she had produced a body of work, which is modern in form and content, and promises to be read for a long time.

Marianne Moore’s treatment of Nature is of a different kind. Unlike the Nature poets of England in the Romantic Age, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats who brought the physical Nature to life in their poetry, Marianne Moore’s animals bring Nature to life. Her field of poetic imagination is within the animal world and occasionally outside it. She introduces strange creatures, some of which are amphibious, the fish kinds, and birds in her poems. In other words, her new nature poetry is more about animals rather than the landscape. Incidentally one makes a note of Marianne Moore’s statement regarding the function of poets. She had stated that poets should invent “imaginary gardens with real toads in them” (“Poetry”), which could be safely applied to define her work. She is neither optimistic nor pessimistic in her attitude towards Nature. Her originality lies in her viewing Nature as it really is. Nowhere in her poems she has tried to rescue or modify Nature. Also, there is no word suggesting her appeal to Nature. Hence, like other new nature poet, she is less committed to “pathetic fallacy”.  

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that her work as a whole has been praised by critics so diverse as Ezra Pound, T S Eliot, Yvor Winters, R P Blackmur, Kenneth Burke, William Carlos Williams, and Wallace Stevens, to quote a few.