Moore, Marianne

Adversity & Grace: Marianne Moore 1936-1941

ISBN: 9781550583908
Victoria, B.C., Canada: ELS Editions, 2012. First Edition. Softcover. “The period examined in this volume, 1936 to 1941, is demarcated by the publication of two of Marianne Moore’s books: the fine press limited edition The Pangolin and Other Verse, published by her friend Bryher’s Brendin Publishing Co. in 1936, and the trade publication What Are Years, published by Macmillan in 1941. Its title, Adversity & Grace, comes from the poem “The Pangolin,” which appears in both books. In that poem Moore describes the eponymous “armored animal” as having the “frictionless creep of a thing/made graceful by adversities” (11.80-81). Although she could not have known it at the time that she wrote the poem, the late 1930s and early 1940s would be a time of multifarious personal and professional adversity for Moore herself, as well as one in which she came to believe that America as a nation was in need of a grace to which her art had not, until that point, been sufficiently attuned. The concepts she associated with that grace, such as workmanship, permanence, patience, loyalty, and self-effacement, are not by their nature exciting, and the poems she wrote in order to espouse them were received without enthusiasm by many of the periodicals to which she sent them, as well as by many of the critics who later wrote about them. For these reasons this period in her work has not been studied in depth, or, by and large, considered a discrete and significant “period” at all.”--Heather Cass White, “Introduction,” pg. xi. Marianne Moore (1887-1972) was one of American literature’s foremost poets, whose writing was characterized by linguistic precision, keen and probing descriptions, and acute observations of people, places, animals, and art. Her poems often reflect her preoccupation with the relationships between the common and the uncommon, advocate discipline in both art and life, and espouse restraint, modesty, and humor. She frequently used animals as a central image to emphasize themes of independence, honesty, and the integration of art and nature. Moore’s work is frequently grouped with poets such as H.D. (1886-1961), T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), Ezra Pound (1885-1972), and, later, Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), to whom she was a friend and mentor. Offered today is the 2012 critical collection of poems and literary criticism Adversity & Grace: Marianne Moore, 1936-1941. Edited by Heather Cass White (b. 1970), editor and professor of English at University of Alabama, Adversity & Grace reproduces What Are Years (1941) in full, as well as the earliest published version of each poem it contains, and provides variant tables that note all of the changes Moore made to the poems in revising them. A companion volume to A-Quiver with Significance: Marianne Moore, 1932-1936 (2008) [see item #9214], the editor's previous edition of Moore's work, Adversity & Grace presents in facsimile reproduction every poem Moore published between 1936 and 1941. From the collection of the late, great George Bornstein (1941-2021), scholar, author & academician at the University of Michigan- a quintessential Man of Letters. Trade-format softcover. Softcover original. First edition though not explicated as such at copyright page, first printing though similarly not explicated thereon. In very fine condition with only minor wear to fine edges, and slight smudging/scratching to front and back covers. Interior very fine with only slight marginalia throughout, handwritten by Bornstein. Very Fine. [Item #9212]

Price: $40.00 save 10% $36.00