A Study Of The Aesthetic Value Of Marianne Moore’s Late Poetry

Marianne Moore was awarded with almost every significant poetry prize in the U.S.,including the Pulitzer,the National Book Award,the Bollingen,the U.S.National Medal for Literature and the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Arts.However,Moore is much underappreciated compared with her contemporaries and her late poetry(1950s-1960s)in particular is insufficiently explored in literary criticism because some famous critics depreciate her late poetry.Linda Leavell and Jeanne Heuving argue that Moore’s late poetry is of less original poetic forms by sacrificing artistic complexity and difficulty for the favor of easy accessibility in understanding,and Laurence Stapleton is critical of Moore’s digression to monotonicity in subject choosing.In response to these views,by taking into account the historical context of late American modernist poetry and F.R.Leavis’ aesthetic thought of “the concrete”,this thesis focuses on the textual close reading of Moore’s late poetry concerning the poetic forms,poetic content and poetic meaning,proving that while presenting certain continuity of Moore’s early poetic principle —specifically the “expediency” principle,Moore’s late poetry is still of pivotal aesthetic value.In this thesis,Chapter one provides evidence to show that while practicing the“expedience” principle in writing poetry,Moore adheres to idiosyncratic musicality in verbal forms and compression in visual forms in her late poetry as she did in early years.Chapter two treads into Moore’s poetic content,proving that the shifts in poetic content tally with Moore’s “expediency” principle and Moore’s unchanging obsession with particulars as subject matters and particulars in quotations fits in well with F.R.Leavis’ aesthetic thought of “the concrete particulars” in reality.Chapter three conducts detailed examinations of the underlying poetic meaning embodied in late poems,exploring morality in individual dispositions,resurrection of spiritual faith and trans-cultural inclusiveness to exemplify Moore’s perceptions about moral restraint,and proving that Moore’s moral concern of her late poems echoes with the aesthetic thought of “the concrete humanity” Leavis emphasizes in literature.Overall,this thesis conducts reevaluation of Marianne Moore’s late poetry in response to the previous literary criticism on her late work,expounds Moore consistency in the “expediency” principle she practices in poetic creation and holds that Moore’s late poetry is of pivotal aesthetic value in poetic forms,poetic content and poetic meaning.