매리안 무어의 신앙과 동물시

Abstract

No one doubts Marianne Moore was in the main stream of Modernism along with T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams. As one of the modern poets, Moore's works share the poetical traits of modernism such as objectivity and obscurity caused by the ommission of the connectives between fragmentary parts and by the obscure symbolic allusions. She, however, has the unique creative traits different from the other modern poets. Her poem, "Poetry" presents the critical ideas on the contemporary poetry with remaking the modern poetics. She says that a poem should not be too ambiguous to understand and the important materials are "useful" things. And a poet should be a "literalist of the imagination" by presenting the "imaginary gardens with real toads in them."Her writing starts from her personal likings. Her Christian faith is reflected on the style as well as on the themes of her works. She asserts that an original poet should be equipped with moral virtues such as sincerity and humility. And as poet she likes the "straight writing", which is to avoid the mannered, overconscious expression and the unnecessary modifiers or commas not to cloud the precise impression of the objects. Her favorite use of "quotations" is part of her "straight writing" not to steal the original writer's efforts. Moore's animal poems from her personal interest in the animals show her unique understanding of the animal world. She views the animals with God's perspective of God and finds their graceful usage for themselves and for other beings. She recognizes the moral virtues in the animals' biological traits and describes them as "choice race" with elegance and grace. Especially in the "Pangolin," she discovers the common vision of graceful use in the animal's graceful labors and the activities of the religious artists and of the Christian saints. In the animal poems Moore uses the unique writing methods. One of them is to mix different topics with no apparent division in one syntax and to make them flow to the next stanza or line with no break. And sometimes she applies a word like "grace" to the different levels of meaning. In such a way of writing she indirectly criticizes man's arrogance toward and ignorance about the animals while she praises the animals in that the latter follows the natural living pattern ordained by God's providence of creation.