In the Public Garden (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Marianne Moore
- First Published: 1958
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Freedom, United States or Americans, Education or educators, Art or artists, Poetry or poets, Boston, Festivals, Massachusetts
Moore wrote “In the Public Garden” for the 1958 Boston Arts Festival, where she read the poem to an audience of five thousand people. In it, she considers art both in its public function and as an expression of individuality. To emphasize the importance of artistic freedom, she arranges her ideas in a series of paradoxes.
The first stanza introduces the duality. The festival “for all” takes place near Harvard University, which has made “education individual.” Moore considers one individual, an “almost scriptural” taxicab driver who drove her to Cambridge. He...
[The entire page is 692 words long]
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