Material Detail

This video was recorded at YALE ENGL 310 - Modern Poetry with Professor Langdon Hammer. The previous lecture's examination of "The Octopus" is continued, focusing on Moore's innovative use of quotation. The poem "Silence" is read in connection with nineteenth-century poetry and the poet's personal reticence. Selections from Elizabeth Bishop's personal memoir of Moore are presented with special attention to Moore's relationships with other modernists and male poets in particular. The poem "To a Snail" is considered as a meditation on style and compression, and a reading of "The Paper Nautilus" rounds out a wider examination of the use and meaning of restraint in Moore's poetry. Reading assignment: Marianne Moore: "The Steeple-Jack," "To a Snail," "Silence," "Poetry," "Critics and Connoisseurs," "What Are Years?" "When I Buy Pictures," "Picking and Choosing," "Marriage"; Norton: Humility, Concentration, and Gusto (pp. 994-99) Resources Handout 10: Marianne Moore [PDF]

Disciplines:

• Arts