{"id":3746,"date":"2017-12-06T04:20:54","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T04:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/?p=3746"},"modified":"2017-12-06T04:21:06","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T04:21:06","slug":"marianne-moore-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/2017\/12\/06\/marianne-moore-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Marianne Moore"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Brief Biography by Abbey C.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An imaginative poet who was as fiery as her bright red hair, Marianne Moore earned critical acclaim for her poetry and popular affection for her eccentric character.<\/p>\n

Born in 1887 in Kirkland, Missouri, Marianne Craig Moore never met her father, who suffered a breakdown before her birth. Moore, lived with her family (moving sporadically) until 1905, when she began attending Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. There Moore published her first poems and encountered institutional feminist rhetoric. In college, Moore also began to explore her fascination with the biology of animals (which later manifested itself in poems like \u201cA Jellyfish\u201d) and, potentially, her sexual desire for women. Moore\u2019s queer tendencies, however, have been a contentious topic, and her lesbianism has perhaps been exaggerated in feminist criticism.<\/p>\n

Moore graduated from college in 1909 and, in 1918, after publishing poems in avant-garde little magazine\u00a0Others<\/em>, moved to Greenwich Village with her mother. From 1921-1925, Moore worked at the New York Public Library. During her employment, Moore took a trip (1922) to Washington to visit her brother. There, she climbed Mount Rainer and was inspired to start two of her most celebrated poems, \u201cAn Octopus\u201d and \u201cMarriage.\u201d In 1924, Moore published Observations <\/em>and won the Dial Award.<\/p>\n

The time between 1918 and 1922 was the time of Moore\u2019s greatest overlap with Mina Loy (although their texts met and mingled often in avant-garde publications). Later, Loy disclosed to William Carlos Williams that that during a visit to New York \u201cMarianne was the only one whose poetry she had feared\u201d (Burke 291). A rivalry began, but one mostly orchestrated by their male counterparts. (For example, Ezra Pound wrote of Moore, \u201cAlso, entre nooz: is there anyone in America except you [\u2026] and Mina Loy who can write anything of interest in verse?\u201d (Moore 453)). Both their counterparts and critics today suspect that Moore felt intimidated by Loy\u2019s beauty and presence at literary events, which presumably prompted her to write \u201cThose Various Scalpels\u201d \u201cabout Loy\u2019s image in literary circles\u201d (Burke 292). While Loy and Moore preferred to keep their distance, in January of 1920, Loy and McAlmon did visit Moore in Greenwich Village.<\/p>\n

Upon leaving the library in 1925, Moore replaced Scofeild Thayer as editor of\u00a0The Dial<\/em>\u00a0until the magazine was discontinued in 1929. After, Moore and her mother moved to Brooklyn and Moore stopped writing until, in 1933, she was awarded the Helen Haire Levinson Prize from\u00a0Poetry, which gained her national attention and spurred her to renewed creativity. In 1934, Moore met poet Elizabeth Bishop and they began an \u201cintense, sometimes tense, sometimes erotic\u201d relationship (Kent 169). After several publications in the 1940s, Moore was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1945 and, a year later, a grant from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. With this money, Moore began meticulously translating the\u00a0Fables choisies, mises en vers\u00a0<\/em>by Jean de La Fontaine. This project took almost a decade, and Moore suffered a great loss of confidence when it was rejected by the first publishing firm to which she submitted it.<\/p>\n

In 1947, Moore\u2019s mother died. Besides Moore\u2019s time in college, they had lived together for most of Moore\u2019s life and, she had relied on her mother\u2019s guidance for revising her poetry. The loss of left her unsure of her abilities. Nevertheless, later awards\u2014a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award in 1952\u2014helped to restore her confidence. In 1954, her translations of\u00a0Fables of La Fontaine\u00a0<\/em>appeared on the market, followed by an anthology of critical essays (Predilections)\u00a0<\/em>and a collection of poetry (O to be a Dragon<\/em>, 1959). In the 60s, Moore reemerged into popular culture \u201cas somewhat of a celebrity\u201d (Gale). She was featured in\u00a0Life,\u00a0<\/em>the\u00a0New York\u00a0<\/em>Times. In 1968, she suffered a series of strokes and lived a secluded life until she died in her sleep in 1972.<\/p>\n

Bio-Template:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Name<\/em>: Marianne Craig Moore<\/p>\n

Date of Birth<\/em>: November 15, 1887<\/p>\n

Place of Birth<\/em>: Kirkland, Missouri<\/p>\n

Date of Death<\/em>: February 5, 1972<\/p>\n

Place of Death<\/em>: 35 West 9th<\/sup>\u00a0Street, apartment 7B. Greenwich Village, New York City, New York.<\/p>\n

Country of origin, citizenship<\/em>: United States of America<\/p>\n

Gender<\/em>: Female<\/p>\n

Race<\/em>: White\/Caucasian<\/p>\n

Kind of Artist\/Cultural worker<\/em>: Poet, critic, and translator. \u201cSelf-identified (spinster) daughter and modernist poet\u201d (Kent 184).<\/p>\n

Address in Florence or New York<\/em>:<\/p>\n