The Iowa Review
Volume 17
Issue 3 Fall
Article 48
1987
Review of "The Complete Prose of Marianne
Moore" by Marilyn Krysl
Marilyn Krysl
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Krysl, Marilyn. "Review of "The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore" by Marilyn Krysl." The Iowa Review 17.3 (1987): 168-177. Web.
Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview/vol17/iss3/48
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Review
Marilyn Krysl
The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore.
Edited andwith an Introduction by Patri
cia C. Willis. New York: Elizabeth Sifton
Books, Viking Penguin Inc., 1986. 723
pp. $24.95.
"I would
manner
manner
spoken in my
statement
Socrates'
quotes
than
rather die having
and live." Moore
tithesis, which
she believed
was
speak
as an
in your
of an
example
use
instinctively
suggests that antithe
one of the devices writers
in mastering
their subjects. Studying Moore's
prose
a fundamental
but of her manner of be
fact not just of her writing
see anyone as strange asMarianne
Lowell
said, "You won't
ing. Robert
a
not
His
Moore
for
amazed and baffled remark ack
while."
again,
long
sis was
nowledges
as it were,
the fact that Moore
antithesis.
stood out from
the background.
awoman
A woman
She lived,
awoman
unmarried,
writing,
she lived a life in opposi
that chastity has a certain power,
tion to the norm for awoman
of her time (1887-1970).
The authoritative
who
remarked
tone of the prose, like that of the poetry, reveals how determined
she was.
on
she insisted
the ab
Within
the confines of her particular circumstances,
of speaking.
solute accuracy and Tightness of her manner
The Complete
Moore Collection
Prose
Marianne
of
at the Rosenbach
Moore,
Museum
edited
by
the curator
and Library,
is divided
of
the
into
three periods: The Dial Years (1921-1929); The Middle Years (1931
1947); andThe Later Years (1948-1968). Appendices include letters to the
One gets the feeling that in putting
puffs and short interviews.
so mesmerized
contra
Willis
became
collection
this
by Moore's
together
a
not to
that she was demonically
indirection
provide
inspired
dictory
editor,
Table
is one
of this guide ismaddening.
Brevity
and the amassing of many very short essays without
hallmarks,
irritation. One must
fans considerable
system guarantees Moore
of Contents.
of Moore's
a retrieval
The
absence
thumb backward and forward through all six hundred plus pages of text,
on Stevens,
that review of Bryher.
looking for this piece
it
resembles
the poetry. The stylistic techniques
The prose. How
closely
to the poetry are com
of thought common
and the characteristic manner
mon to the prose aswell. Heavy use of quotation;
the despising of connec
168
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at a thing by
in
the door and coming
avoiding
aphorism; getting
a
for exotic animals as creatures sur
the windows;
through
predilection
a
man ?these
are her trademarks,
like
passing
always. To
personality
was pre
of genre were
distinctions
Moore's,
scarcely the issue. The point
or
in
Moore
the
and
worked
the
her
whether
cision,
strophe
paragraph,
tives;
relation
to the sentence
remained
consistently
and idiosyncratically
hers.
Compare:
do not
Denunciations
effect
the culprit: nor blows, but it
is torture
to him not
to be
spoken
to.
natural?
They're
the coat,
mantle
like Venus
lined with
close
buttoned
stars,
at the neck, ?the
sleeves new
from disuse.
And:
We
are a
tree against
the sun. Some
many-foliaged
a wave
by
penetrated
do not muse within
themselves;
?like
the vegetable
the moon;
authors
they "think"
cuts into
shredder which
the life of a thing. Miss Bishop is not one
of these frettingly
intensive
machines.
In an essay entitled "Feeling and Precision" Moore wrote,
"you don't de
sentence
vise a rhythm,
but a radiograph
the rhythm is the person, and the
of personality."
A radiography
It is interesting,
in the prose, how much
of personality.
to say, but more
must
is left unspoken. Moore
had much
precisely
(and I
be precise, I feel shewould wish it so), she had much to say on selected
subjects,
cagily chosen.
This
"autobiography,"
On
other
subjects?fascinating?she
and silent,
loquacious
is mum.
alternately
provides
and very particularistic
voluableness
and reti
tracery of Moore's whimsical
cence, her impulse both to exposit and to omit. The omissions
pique my
a
curiosity. I like to imagine her both gratified and amused by such seeking
and by my
consequent
satisfaction
and frustration.
For her manner
of
169
and her decision
speaking
To
lenging.
These
some
to address
subjects and avoid others
reveal, and to secret away.
to be silent. To
talk,
is chal
two
themselves
psychological
impulses manifest
complimentary
in almost every essay, and in both style and content. The reader is led from
and back again to the succinct mot. "We
epigram through embellishment
are often reminded that the civilized world is uncivilized" is followed by
of ornate
paragraphs
of this claim, punctuated
such as "The wish
statements,
evidence
summary
epigramatic
that there should be a new museum
now
of Mr.
and again by
Rockefeller
seems gener
in Egypt
of antiquities
Lewis Carroll) "no deed of ours on this side of the grave
is charac
Interplay between
capsule and embellishment
in
all three periods. Her much quoted remarks on Ei
teristic of the essays
ous" and (quoting
is really unselfish."
senhower
are a
in 1961
illustration
charming
from
the later work.
I am deplored for extolling President Eisenhower for the very
reasons
for which
I should
reprehend
1956?he
for veto
him. Attacked
said, "To produce more
ing
Bill?April
resources on what we
crops when we need less, squandering
it solve the problem?
cannot eat or sell . . .would
Is it in the
the Farm
best interests of all?" Anything reprehensible in that?
Of
Elizabeth
Bishop,
Moore
wrote:
same
inter
specific is judiciously
to Moore
of
herself. Evidence
"The
The
applies
spersed with generality."
to
out and to
Moore's
speak
keep silent is her interest in this
impulse
notes
in
in others. Moore
both Eliot and Stevens that quality
phenomenon
she asserts, achieve "emphasis by under
she calls "reticent candor." Both,
statement."
And
in a review
of H.D.'s
tells us they
is opu
which
Collected Poems, Moore
a fastidious
starkness
apparent
prodigality?an
"present
to an aesthetic, both inscribed and lived.
amounts
lence." Oxymoron
To reveal, to secret. Moore
of
the majority
takes up subjects. Though
wrote
in fact Moore
further afield.
the essays address literary matters,
the essays seem so varied as to suggest
the course of this collection,
an all inclusiveness?baseball,
the edu
Abe Lincoln,
greed, Churchill,
in
fashions
dress, Bryn Mawr,
courage, psy
cating of artists, Brooklyn,
Over
in poetry, Henry James, humility,
the sculp
are
to her,
interest
Yet there
subjects surely of
to. We
learn little, for instance, about Moore's
speak
"contagion"
chonanalysis,
ture of Malvina Hoffman.
which
170
she does not
as amovement.
of Modernism
opinion
has made
Martin,
as aModernist
simply
well. What
cluded
almost
ments
ment
yet at least one scholar, Taffy
advance action, describing
her not
as
but as awriter who
the
anticipated
postmodern
reveals is that Moore
appears to be pleased to be in
And
a case for Moore's
the prose
her view
but
among Modernists;
of
She quotes
always purely descriptive.
of Eliot, Pound, Stevens andWilliams,
of her own. Seldom does she qualify
Gang of Four,
Stevens is never
so that
liberate bearishness
instances
the Modernist
and reiterates
the pronounce
little pronounce
her descriptive
praise of The
but makes
of even mild
one
is
aesthetic
rebuke
is conscious,
crude;
inadvertently
?a
shadow of acrimonious,
stand out.
however,
unprovoked
"Mr.
of a de
contumely."
It is as though she did not wish to question her hardwon but often un
acknowledged
place.
Her truly severe critique is reserved for Donald Allen's The New Ameri
can
1945-1960.
Here
she makes clear that her sympathies
lie with
Poetry:
at
to
Even so, she is
her generation.
in the
pains
praise individual writers
and to direct criticism at the group's aesthetic instead. She quar
anthology
rels with Olson's
it as
but does not so much criticize
"Projective Verse,"
as Olson's
restate the matter
re
in terms which
not.
her
do
With
satisfy
gard
to content
in general,
she asserts:
as Samuel
Good
content,
good
treatment,
Butler
and poets
culture
ings"?severed
dance and stench?have
exhibitionist
is usually matched
by
in "organs
and feel
specializing
and literature,
dogged by redun
a stiff task.
the
By comparison with
are creative,
in fact enthralling,
of science, which
content ?invaded
the
of drug-vendors
diction
by
from
vocabularies
said,
sex addicts
and civic parasites?becomes
can be forced," as Alfred
"Imagination
inoperative.
"but it cannot be simulated."
and victims,
Her
final judgment
of the anthology
seems
something
poetically
Kazin
said,
akin to Steven's
re
mark that the "essential thing in form is to be free inwhatever form is
used. A
free form does not
assure freedom.
..."
Though she does not directly discuss either literaryfriendships or liter
ary quarrels
of the time, her outspokenness
in criticizing
The New
Ameri
canPoetry (The, she thought, should be omitted from the title) suggests
171
shemight have liked to but felt constrained. A pity, for shemight have
so
done
charmingly,
given
her wit,
her perspicacity,
her bright
eye and her
sharp though bridled tongue. An essay in The Dial in December 1926
comes
as close
as Moore
came
to
artists to one
contemporary
that in "blindly disparaging
things,
envies him his realness and wishes
Moore
herself
and between
contemporaries,
probably wished.
of the relation
of
essay asserts, among other
that one
another, one shows merely
one says he is."
that he were what
the contradictions
subsumes
her view
articulating
another. The
that must
and
arisen between
have
them,
into
of experts
"the judgment
Although
is not; perception
she writes,
"their genius
variance,"
'innocent.'"
herne would
say,
the
synthesis
on one another
is always,
her
she
is at
as Tra
in her
about the status of women writers
says nothing
Similarly, Moore
a roundabout
own or in other
In
she
discusses
way
periods.
particular
writers and theirwork (she reviewsMabel Loomis Todd's Letters ofEmily
Dickinson,
but
for instance,
E. F. Benson's
she does not address either women
circumstances,
their chances.
above"
to be a virtue.
gossip
don't inflict on others."
of Charlotte
biography
Bront?),
or women
as a group, their
writers
she would
have considered
"rising
Certainly
She quotes
Confucius.
you don't
I dislike more
than
"What
And "there is nothing
the expos? or any kind of revenge." But she could be gabby about Henry
she does speak, it iswith
absolute authority.
James or the Cantos. When
want,
She proceeds as though the world
she says, asserting
agrees with her. We,
not then spout her own view of
her accord with
society at large. Why
matters
of women,
aesthetic? And why not discuss the position
both in
and out of the literary world? Given her penchant
for being on the side of
matter
meat?
be
wouldn't
such
her
virtue,
Helen Vendler,
in her essay on Moore
in theModern Critical Views
for America.
that Moore
She was
suggests
simply
too much for us. Since Moore
values understatement,
Vendler
sug
simply
to
most
were
it
her
have
seemed
around
her
"that
shout
may
gests,
people
a brief or
be 'mute' to them. It
ing, and that
dry phrase from her would
series,
was
too exotic
...
. . ."
of reaching a general audience.
may be that she gave up hope
more
to
seem
in
it
is
this.
the
There
would
that a
But,
point,
surely truth
woman
of Moore's
knew the score only too well. As inNaked
intelligence
and Fiery Forms,
sense of
danger.
172
"Marianne Moore
did not exaggerate
her
Juhasz writes,
In her life and in her art she trod delicately,
purposefully,
skillfully through enemy lines, deflecting attack by eluding it, by denying
. . ."
to be at battle.
it, by never appearing
of the poem "Marriage," Moore
With
the exception
does not directly
the sexes. And of women,
address relations between
her rare remarks are
She speaks at length of Carey Thomas'
de
tribulations,
contradictory.
as "sobered
Moore
Thomas
obstruction."
the
Thomas,
writes,
scribing
by
and dean of a college was made president officially
"virtual administrator
a
one
in
of
but
vote; then only after years of 'wary foresight
by majority
holding back and driving forward at the rightmoments,' was grudgingly
to the board of trustees."
elected
are no
women
as
men,"
What
debarred
longer
the matter
though
she did do was
considerable
in the next breath Moore
asserts "...
the professions
that are open
since been settled once and for all.
from
had
to review
books
by
women
writers
with
to
care and
reviews of Brhyer, H.D.,
and Bogan,
for in
as those of Auden, Williams,
Stevens, Pound
admiring
as one in whom we find "intensive,
She describes H.D.
Her
enthusiasm.
are
as
stance,
fully
and cummings.
unmixed
and unimpeded,
bity
Yet
the white
she defends Dickinson
against
wit
fire of the poet." With
the accusation of vanity.
and acer
A certain buoyancy
that creates an effect of inconsequential
bra
sense of drama with which we may not be
vado?a
quite at
for her a part ofthat expansion of breath necessary
or
to existence,
and unless it is conceited
for the hummingbird
the osprey to not behave like a chicken, one does not find her
conceited.
home?was
in reply to Dame Edith's father's remark, "Edith will commit
suicide
she finds she cannot write poetry," Moore writes dryly, "Need for
when
did not review Amy Lowell's work,
this has not arisen." Though Moore
And
she wrote
The DiaVs
American,
sometimes
eulogy,
modern
Lowell
describing
American writer."
as a
"self-dependently
The death of Amy Lowell emphasizes the force of her personal
ity. Cosmopolitan
yet
isolated,
essentially
distinct
from
"the
imagist group," of which she has been called "the recognized
armored self-reliance,
she has by a misleadingly
spokesman,"
a love of romance,
sometimes obscured a generosity,
the luster
of a chivalry which
was
essentially
hers.
173
are
She could be cutting, but her infrequent
sharp remarks
generally
A one sentence review of Chills
served for her male contemporaries.
Fever,
by John Crowe
Ransom,
re
and
reads:
mountebank
mock
dissonances,
Unrewarding
persiflage,
of
and
shreds
medieval
sug
minstrelsy,
elegance disturbingly
now that contemporary
now
one
of
this,
bard,
gestive
deprive
to
to
of the faculty
this "dangerous"
diagnose
phenomenon
one has
which
exposed oneself.
In her review
of The New
American
Poetry,
to
she pianages
compliment
Allen Ginsberg, then addsby the by, that he "can foul the nest in away to
at."
marvel
to be
it appears Moore made a conscious
decision
unfailingly
her
is
her
female
toward
gracious
contemporaries,
praise
occasionally
now describe as male-biased.
in attitudes we would
It is today a
couched
to say, asMoore
does of Bogan,
that one is struck
left-handed compliment
Though
are not noted for terseness, but Louise
that "women
by her "restraint,"
art is compactness
Such praise too closely resembles
Bogan's
compacted."
treatment of Adrienne Rich's
Auden's
he wrote were
early poems, which
not mumble,
dressed,
respect
"neatly and modestly
speak quietly but do
are
not cowed by them, and do not tell fibs?"
their elders but
Moore
when
will
not decide
point
questioned
to speak to woman's
blank on this matter
condition
and yet
Year
for the Encyclopedia
generally,
Book (1957), she responds:
With
hood
to careers outside
the home, delegated mother
regard
can be a threat, for I believe that our
as a nation
integrity
isbound up with the home. Good children are not the product
or fame to the
of their
well-being
prefer money
or
not
dare
families.
regress by suppressing
intelligence
women
to be useful. But steadfastness,
conscience
forbidding
.
.
.
.
.
are
and the capacity for sacrifice.
basic.
of mothers
who
.
. . We
Such a statement
She died before Mary
plishing what Moore
174
us pause. Then we remember Moore's
context.
accom
thus
had
reclaimed
the
word
Daly
spinster,
gives
most
devoutly
wished
and heartily
approved:
the
on of
as Eliot wrote,
"more highly
language,
fined, more precise than it was before."
passing
developed,
re
more
are a
candor," her "fastidious prodigality,"
challenge.
were
it known,
is not clarity, nor is it autobiography.
Precision
What,
true
state
Recent
criticism
of
ack
the
affairs?
feminist
have been
might
Moore's
"reticent
from a range of perspectives,
Moore's
sometimes
obvious,
nowledges,
InNaked and
Suzanne Juhasz makes the
often hidden, power.
Fiery Forms,
case that Moore
and
did not escape the double bind of the woman writer,
of feminine
from art."
remarks Moore's
"marked exclusion
experience
Still Juhasz notes that Moore's
that may
gained her "a victory
separation
have been
in herself
qualified
of woman
by
and poet
the very methods
used to gain it but which was nevertheless a prize that few before her had
InMarianne
won."
"Granite
Moore:
Laurence
The Poet's Advance,
reads
Stapleton
a
to Hart Crane's
"grandiose vision of
and as affirmation of the mind's power. Vendler does
as a corrective
and Steel"
to Atlantis"
voyage
not see Moore's
stance as defensive
"armored"
but as one of "superior
She reads "Black Earth" as a description
of
and denegration."
in
the same way Alicia Ostriker,
the self in much
Stealing the Language,
as
a
sees "Sojourn
in the Whale"
the sexes.
portrait of relations between
amusement
also points out that male critics of Moore
than she is."
and squeamish
shrinking
Vendler
"more
to be
her out
make
is no doubt
inMoore
that elicits this uneasi
something
no
matter
how strongly they extol
commentators,
is in fact more "feminine"
her virtues. Perhaps her work
than it
... Or
Moore's
occasional
for
may appear.
contempt
perhaps
a counterattack
on what
of male power provokes
the world
There
ness in male
may
seem
InMarianne
to some her miniature
version
of life.
Moore:
Subversive Modernist, Taffy Martin
the European mode
proper place is within
are
as "defensive
her craft and precision
perceived
that Moore's
where
her." Martin
American
makes
stream,
Moore's
the case
that Moore
the view
of Modernism,
barriers
was
around
inWilliams'
thoroughly
and that she acted as a subversive
influence within
at The Dial,
Martin
years
points
to
of
the
he
build
magazine,
Thayer's
editing
attempted
once
Moore
of the age, and that
against the contradictions
Discussing
refuses
it.
out
that during
it into a bulwark
became
editor,
175
she turned The Dial
into an "aesthetic
of those contradictions.
equivalent"
as she was
and determined
She "was as opinionated
retiring and private,"
tone and
Martin
and
she
altered
The
Dial's
defensive
states,
previously
as one does
"conducted"
an orchestra,
by
enacting in her essays themultiplicity and disparateness of the
around
world
her. Moore's
positive
they
to diminish
than attempt
world.
Thayer's
mirror
rather
the modern
Thus
for Martin,
just as
judgments,
that
accept and
judgments
essays present
are
do, but
Moore
represents
the fragmentation
"a playful
rather
than
of
a defensive
spirit."
thrives on secrecy, indirection,
you
sleight of hand. Now
Playfulness
see her, now you don't. This,
this, and this, but not that, my friends. The
prose most certainly enacts Williams'
"necessary appearance of disorder in
all immediacy,"
but it also serves as a screen from behind which Moore
"The unquiet nature of the artist is pro
unpredictably.
verbial, genius being in some sense always in revolt," she says, apparently
someone other than herself. But is she?
to ques
Responding
speaking of
tions put to her by Howard Nemerov,
in
she remarks, "I see no revolution
. . . creativeness."
. . .
to me
of the emotions
And "Governance
seem(s)
"
'the artist.'
Here
she seems to speak for herself. But again, does she?
"It is typical of Miss Moore's
is equivocal,"
that the meaning
poetry
steps fleetingly,
Donald
so
the same motion,
said. "She gives and takes away with
one
as
start
to
the
believes he understands,
words
fold back
just
Hall
that often,
on themselves
Hall's
statement
the unconscious.
to seem
and an exactly opposite meaning
begins
plausible."
us
is a fact of
of Freud's belief that contradiction
reminds
Dreams
often
combine
and
accommodate
contrary
side
thoughts
by side.
things,
contradictory
assertion. "Instinc
In "Feeling and Precision" Moore makes an intriguing
. . ." She is
as an aid to
we
precision.
tively,
speaking of
employ antithesis
as well
for
herself.
and in
have
but
she
Here,
spoken
writing,
might
as
her authority,
countless
she proclaims
other assertions,
proceeding
a
to
contrast
in
in
life
fact she lived
agree, when
though she and the world
and in the unconscious
she says, asserting publicly
We,
expectations.
quotidian
as
her
milieu which
"strange."
"Instinctively,
perceived
176
exist
her accord with
we"?but
a
since
we
all do not
instinctively
act as she asserts,
the emphasis
is thrown
onto
the adverb. And the adverb suggests the personal. It is as though she had
I." Antithesis.
Reticent
candor. Moore,
the
said, "Instinctively,
to
to
secret
state
In
To
1962
Moore
asked
reveal,
away.
oxymoron.
Esquire
to be
Her
Like
but
her "most paradoxical
inconspicuous
quality."
reply:
in fact
look well.
for perceiving
and her talent for
oxymoron
Perhaps Moore's
penchant
one are her attempt
to achieve balance,
the Greeks' moderation
being
to admire. InH.D., Moore
she so often professed
found "the verbal
which
She con
the controlled
ardor, the balanced speech of poetry."
continuity,
sistently criticized
"...
she declared.
extremes.
excess
is usually subversive of sagacity,"
"Egotism
is the common
substitute
for energy." And in
statement: "If there be
Prose Moore
twice quotes Confucius'
Complete
a knife of resentment
in the heart, the mind
fails to attain precision."
She may have hoped for balance, but it is an existential
fact that its
too far, one is
to declare
is never permanent.
Pushed
achievement
likely
The
the bottom line. J would ratherdie having spoken inmy manner thanspeak in
manner and live. Socrates' declaration
page, a crie de
your
leaps from Moore's
are better than
coeur.
and stands as an il
she wrote,
"Originals
replicas,"
lustration of her assertion.
177