Marianne Moore (Magill Book Reviews)

The life and work of Marianne Moore (1887-1972) abound in paradoxes. In her later years she was a public figure, featured in LIFE magazine and VOGUE, interviewed and consulted and feted at every turn. Was she then that rarity in the United States, a popular poet? Not exactly; in fact, her most characteristic poems have a self-contained quality that scares off casual readers. Her work combines steely intelligence, playfulness, and moral argument. In many ways the very model of a modernist, she was in other respects extremely conservative. The style she developed was original, highly distinctive, yet one of its most distinctive features is the extent to which she appropriated for her poems lines taken verbatim or nearly so from museum catalogs, magazine articles, and all manner of sources: poetry as collage.

These and other paradoxes have yet to be fully explored, though several excellent critical studies of Moore appeared in the 1980’s. Also lacking has been a full-fledged biography. What Charles Molesworth has produced is somewhere between straight biography and literary criticism. In part because of limitations placed on him by the Moore estate, in part because of his own sense of his subject, Molesworth focuses on Moore’s work and the development of her thought, yet he also provides valuable biographical context.

In addition to this book Molesworth has published shorter critical studies of Donald Barthelme and Gary Snyder. Barthelme, Snyder, Moore: It would be hard to name three more disparate subjects. This catholicity of taste points to Molesworth’s greatest virtue as a biographer/critic: He takes Moore on her own terms and allows her work to dictate his approach. He doesn’t come to her poems armed with critical jargon. Molesworth’s study has its drawbacks. His sentences are often clumsy and convoluted, and there is evidence of extremely sloppy editing throughout. Nevertheless, anyone interested in Moore will want to read this book. The text is supplemented by photographs, a selected annotated bibliography, very scanty notes, and an index.

Sources for Further Study

Boston Globe. September 23, 1990, p.43.

Chicago Tribune. July 22, 1990, XIV, p.3.

Choice. XXVII, August, 1990, p.2146.

Chronicles. XV, February, 1991, p.22.

Kirkus Reviews. LVIII, June 1, 1990, p.782.

Library Journal. CXV, June 15, 1990, p.113.

The New York Times Book Review. XCV, August 26, 1990, p.8.

Publishers Weekly. CCXXXVII, July 13, 1990, p.45.

San Francisco Chronicle. August 26, 1990, p. REV8.

The Washington Post Book World. XX, August 19, 1990, p.7.