“Poetry has “a place for the genuine,” and Moore’s favoring of animals as poetic subjects is a tribute to their genuineness.” (Allen 1939, 112)
In my term paper I want to deal with her special interest in animals. I want to find out why she uses animals in her poems and what function they fulfil.
In order to do so, I will first have a look at her poems in general to discover what kind of animals she uses and with which frequency. I will also look at her life outside of the poet’s world in order to understand where her influences came from.
I will then pick out two of her animal poems to make a more specific analysis on them in order to see what the different functions of animals are and how they are presented. The first example will be Marianne Moore’s poem To a giraffe which will then be compared to a second poem The arctic ox (or goat).
In a next step I want to give an overview over the other functions of animals used in Marianne Moore’s poetry. To understand the quantity and frequency of animal use in her works I will consider another by Marianne Moore which is called The Jerboa. Because of its length I will not analyze this poem in detail, but I will present the most important aspects in regard to the functions of animals given in this frequently cited and interpreted poem.
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Animals in Marianne Moore’s poetry and life
2.1. To a Giraffe
2.1.1. Formal analysis
2.1.2. Analysis of content and animal use
2.2. The Arctic Ox (or Goat)
2.2.1. Formal Analysis
2.2.2. Analysis of content, animal use and its opposition to To a Giraffe ..6 .
3. The motif of animals in other poems by Marianne Moore
3.1. Forty in one: The Jerboa
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography
1. Introduction
“Poetry has “a place for the genuine,”1 and Moore’s favoring of animals as poetic
subjects is a tribute to their genuineness.” (Allen 1939, 112)
Marianne Moore (*1887; †1972) was one of the modernist American Women Poets. The features most striking in her poetry are not only the length of her poems and the quotations which she liked to use a lot but most obviously her themes. Even if she was also interested in the same themes as her contemporaries, it was her achievement to express statements about those themes in an unusual way, for example in the world of baseball or animals.
In my term paper I want to deal with her special interest in animals. I want to find out why she uses animals in her poems and what function they fulfil. In order to do so, I will first have a look at her poems in general to discover what kind of animals she uses and with which frequency. I will also look at her life outside of the poet’s world in order to understand where her influences came from. I will then pick out two of her animal poems to make a more specific analysis on them in order to see what the different functions of animals are and how they are presented. The first example will be Marianne Moore’s poem To a giraffe which will then be compared to a second poem The arctic ox (or goat).
In a next step I want to give an overview over the other functions of animals used in Marianne Moore’s poetry. To understand the quantity and frequency of animal use in her works I will consider another by Marianne Moore which is called The Jerboa. Because of its length I will not analyze this poem in detail, but I will present the most important aspects in regard to the functions of animals given in this frequently cited and interpreted poem.
2. Animals in the poetry and life of Marianne Moore
Snail, elephant, giraffe, cat, ox, chameleon - only a few of the huge enormous number of animals one can find in the poetry of Marianne Moore. If you come across any extract from a poem by Marianne Moore you will hardly find one without an animal mentioned in it, one forth of the Collected Poems from 1951 are dedicated to animals and they appear in almost all the other poems at least once (cf. Allen 1939, 98). It is fascinating with which frequency and exactness she chooses animal after animal to express all different kinds of messages in her works.
There are a couple of reasons, which are really simple, why she refers to those creatures instead of using other symbols or metaphors. On the one hand she explains “her liking for animals: “They are subjects for art and exemplars of it, are they not? minding their own business.” (Hall 1970, 156) There are other good reasons why Marianne Moore might have picked the animal and not trees, mountains or the sea, like lots of other nature poets employed. They have a big advantage in comparison to those other possibilities, they “do for the landscape what the older kind of nature poet had to do himself - they bring it to life.” (Langbaum 1970, 112)
Within the category of animals Marianne Moore makes other distinctions. She prefers rather unknown, special and exotic animals, in fact the cat is the only domestic animal in her poetry. Of course, one can think of easier animals to make the reader understand the message of a poem without having him to use a biology encyclopaedia but animals like the jerboa and the plumet basilik are also untouched by any prejudices of society in contrast to the commoner animals (cf. Hall 1970, 77). Not only Moore’s life was decorated with animals. The biology student Moore used to collect bird feathers, pictures of kangaroos and even had a pet alligator in her apartment (cf. Allen 1939, 97).
Animals played an important role during her life and in order to understand her poetry it is important to argue about her “animal kingdom”.
2.1. To a Giraffe
One of Marianne Moore’s later poems To a Giraffe shows one of her typical use of animals. This poem was “originally commissioned by the Steuben Glass Corporation” (Hall 1970, 172) and was published in A Marianne Moore Reader in 1961, collected in The Arctic Ox (cf. Moore 1966, 55) and 1966 in Tell me, Tell me (cf. Allen 1939, 166).
2.1.1. Formal analysis
With nine stanzas consisting of couplets - except for stanza eight - To a Giraffe 2 is one of Miss Moore’s shorter poems.
The poem can be subdivided into five parts. It starts off with a condition: “If it is permissible” (l.1) and “if the eye is not innocent” (l.4) followed by a question noticeable through a question mark: “Does it mean that / one can live only on top leaves that are small / reachable only by a beast that is tall?” (ll. 3-6). In the next two lines the giraffe is functioning as an example answering the question posed before which is then followed by an explanation justifying the example from line 9 to line 14. The two words “After all” (l.15) indicate the beginning of the conclusion of the poem. The conclusion is also separated from the rest of the poem by its indention and its syllabic structure. The poem does not have a metre but it sticks to Moore’s syllabic method, each line consists of 7 to 13 syllables. The only exception is line 15 “After all” with only three syllables.
The poem as a whole consists of four sentences which emphasizes the effect of conciseness.
Concerning the level of language in the poem it is striking that almost every line ends with the suffix “al” or “le” (underlined also through the alliteration of the letter “l” in many words) which creates a flow in the rhythm of the poem although there is no metre or regular rhyme scheme. Exceptions are line 4 and 17 in this case but they do not really interrupt the flow of the poem in my opinion. Furthermore one can say that the structure of words is dominated by adjectives with negative prefixes, e.g. “un permissible”, “un conversational” or “un bearable”. These words give a rather negative connotation to the subject of the giraffe and to the poem as a whole. A lot of the words used derive from Greek or Latin origin, Moore also refers to Homer, a Greek poet, who is presenting an existence which “is flawed” (l.18), a world in which “uncertainty and striving are continual” (Hall 1970, 172).
Moore sticks to her style by using run-on lines, individual punctuation and dashes which supports the flow of the poem.
Her rather persuasive and hypo-tactical style leads throughout the poem and makes the reader focus on her argument and the subject of the giraffe.
Moreover two patterns are remarkable. At first the Moore-typical pattern of nature can be found in words like “leaves”, “beast”, “animal” or “creature”. Also striking are words like “psychological”, “transcendence”, “emotionally-tied-in knots”, “sin”, “redemption” and “metaphysical” which one could put under the heading of “psychology”. As well a connection to the religious aspect can be made. This is special for poems by Marianne Moore because she wrote about this issue rather seldom. On the contrary it fits to her method that she associates something metaphysical with the subject of nature. In the meaning of this poem Miss Moore wants to suggest to “find consolation in a metaphysical view of life.” (ibid., 172)
2.1.2. Analysis of content and animal use
I further want to take a closer look at the content of To a Giraffe and how the animal is used in this context to fulfil a certain purpose.
The title assumes that the recipient is a giraffe. The first question arising from the title is: What does the speaker want to say to the giraffe? In my opinion this question is rather autoanswering because nothing is stated directly to the giraffe, the giraffe is rather the theme of the poem itself.
The rhetorical question in the beginning built upon a condition is asking the following: If it is forbidden that one is “personal and undesirable” and “detrimental”, must one be “a beast that is tall” (l.6) to reach the “top leaves that are small” (l.5)? What is meant by this question? The speaker answers it himself by telling us “the giraffe is the best example -“ (l.7). Here the giraffe is mentioned and is so excluded to be the recipient of the poem. Using the catalogue style Moore adds several features to the giraffe, meaning “[u]nconversational”, “exact”, “unbearable” “irresistible” and “less conversational”. These are rather negative aspects which appear when the creature is “plagued by the psychological” (l.9). So apparently the answer is that you need to be a giraffe, a rather exotic animal, to reach the “top leaves”.
The function of the animal used in this poem is, of course, standing for something else, namely the human being. George Nitchie believes “the creature [is] serving chiefly as mask for some human object” (Nitchie 1969, 154). I think, Marianne Moore might draw a comparison between the “exceptional” poet and the “emotionally-tied- in-knots animal” (l.14), the other human being. Being the only one able to reach the “top leaves”, the giraffe/ the poet is isolated from the rest of the society, being excluded, but also able to see things beyond the “normal world”. Does Marianne Moore want to tell us life as a poet means life as an outsider? If that is so, the only consolation can be found in the “metaphysical” (see above).
As is mentioned already, the addressee is not the giraffe, like could be gathered from the title, but it is the human subject, the reader him/herself.
To a Giraffe is an example of animal objects standing for human matters. Even if the giraffe is an outsider from society, with all its specialities and fame around it, “it is not really necessary to be a giraffe, perhaps, but there are worse possibilities.” (Nitchie 1969, 165)
2.2. The Arctic Ox (or Goat)
The poem The Arctic Ox (or Goat)3 was inspired by a newspaper article Marianne Moore read in the Atlantic Monthly in 1958. After having written the poem she was asked to visit the farm she had read about and the ox “instantly took her fancy” (Hall 1970, 158). Moore also explains the derivation of the poem in the publication of it in Collected Poems (cf. Collected Poems, p.193) right before the poem’s beginning.
2.2.1. Formal Analysis
The poem consists of 13 stanzas with five lines each. Representative for Marianne Moore’s poetry there is again no meter to be found and also there is no fixed rhyme scheme. Only the two last lines of each stanza do rhyme continuously. Enjambements can be found in each stanza.
Five to ten syllables can be counted in each line, mostly however six to eight syllables. Similar to To a Giraffe Moore works with a lot of dashes and semi-colons. In contrast to our first poem this one does not appear with many stylistic devices. The reason is probably that Moore “follows the article closely” (Engel 1964, 147) which does not allow changes in detail.
The third line of each stanza is indented which puts emphasize on the middle line and gives a certain “round” look to the form of the poem. Further formal aspect I will analyze in direct opposition to the content.
2.2.2. Analysis of content, animal use and its opposition to To a Giraffe
On the level of content the poem can be split into different parts. The poem opens with a negative tone: “To wear the arctic fox / you have to kill it.” (ll.2-3). In the first two stanzas Moore tells us about disliking the act of killing an animal in order to make useful things for humans out of it. She prefers to “Wear / qiviut - the underwool of the arctic ox - / pulled off it like a sweater;” (ll.3-4) because then also her “conscience” is better. It is being said that most of the times people are not even aware of what they are wearing: “I did not / know I had it on;” (ll.7-8).
The third and forth stanza give a first impression about the animal itself. They tell about the smell of the ox and of his intelligence too. In stanza five a first comparison to other animals is made, “but think!” (l.23) - the exclamation mark is calling for sudden attention here - the arctic ox has a lot more to offer than most of the other animals. What exact advantages they have and what reasons there are to admire them is being explained in stanzas six to eight. On the one hand “you could not a have a choicer pet” (l.30), on the other hand they “learn fast” (l.34).
In the following stanzas the negative characteristics of other animals are shown to then again put emphasize on the “outstripping” (l.48) of the arctic ox. The last two stanzas seem like a call for attention and interest. Moore directly addresses the reader by saying “Suppose you had a bag” (l.61) and asks him for commitment, otherwise he “deserves to freeze” (l.70).
Throughout the whole poem the tone is governed by conversational lightness (cf. Hall 1970, 159) and here in the last stanza it almost seems like a humorous advertisement. Indeed, it is:
If you fear that you are
reading an advertisement,
you are . If we can’t be cordial to these creature’s fleece, I think that we deserve to freeze.
The message Miss Moore transfers is different from the message in the article she was using as her source for The Arctic Ox (or Goat).
The article expresses the wish that man make use of the animals to adjust his economy (…) But Miss Moore omits this wish for social betterment; she prefers to indicate through her celebration of the animal her admiration for the qualities it represents. (Engel 1964, 148)
Apparently she did not want the world to change with the help of her poetry but did want to make a statement about its beauty.
Not only the statements, but the patterns of the poem determine the theme of it. The common pattern of nature which can also be found in To a Giraffe like in stanza five “Chinchillas, otters, water-rats, / and beavers” or stanza eleven “Mountain Valley water, / dandelions, carrots, oats - “ and the pattern of clothing like in “wear”, “coat” or “fleece” show that this poem is concerned about nature and its uses. Moore “celebrates the animal of the title by detailing his qualities” (ibid., 147). Seemingly, that is all Miss Moore does in this poem.
[...]
1 so Marianne Moore said in one of her most famous poems „Poetry“ (cf. Moore 1967, 36)
2 If not marked in particular, all quotations from the poem are taken from: Marianne Moore, The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore, p.215.
3 If not marked in particular, quotes from this poem are taken from: Marianne Moore, The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore, p. 193-195.
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