A Study Of Indeterminate Morality In Marianne Moore’s Poetry

Marianne Moore, a well-known modernist American poet, is adept in borrowing plain flora and fauna and modern machinery to express her thoughts on morality in terms of life, society and nature. But she never explains what kind of morality she on earth keeps. So on the basis of a close reading of Moore’s poems, this thesis tries to explore Moore’s indeterminate morality in her poetry by employing the theory of indeterminacy of postmodernism.Marianne Moore, who deeply cares about the future of her nation, has witnessed the great changes taking place in America in the twentieth-century throughout her eighty years of life. On the one hand, she refuses industrial civilization and criticizes the loss of spirit of the American people under the culture dominated by pragmatism. On the other hand, she accepts modern civilization, believing that industrial production and development of science and technology are inevitable stages of human progress. What is more, Moore emphasizes that human beings should not be the only side to blame in the man-nature relationship. She believes that American people can regain their lost selves and realize the final return of humanity. Therefore, Moore’s morality seems contradictory or even indeterminate. To be specific, Moore’s indeterminate morality mainly reflects in three aspects. Firstly, admitting that life has many possibilities, Moore believes that order will always exist in these possibilities and give people moral guide."The Fish" and "Marriage" are two typical poems to illustrate Moore’s indeterminacy between chaos and order. Secondly, Moore regards society as a whole system with both danger and hope. In her mind, danger is everywhere and often appears unexpectedly, hence she warns people to prepare for danger in times of safety and keep their belief in hope unswervingly."The Steeple-Jack" is a typical poem of this kind. Finally, Moore always wanders between humanity and animality in terms of the relationship between man and nature. For one thing, she suggests that humanity and animality should be placed in an equal position, for all living creature is basically good, let along the plants and animals ugly in appearance. Thus she advises people to treat animals equally and friendly. For another, Moore denies the ideas of anthropocentrism and supremacy of nature, she advocates people to deal with the man-nature relationship scientifically and rationally.Moore is a modernist poet with some postmodernist consciousness. Her poetic career, to some extent, overlaps with the period of postmodernism. In order to realize her indeterminate morality, Moore prefers to borrow the remote things in remote places at remote times thematically, and also employ a large quantity of postmodernist writing techniques in her poems including collage, juxtaposition and irony. The remote theme and postmodernist writing skills are of great help to further understand Moore’s indeterminate morality.This thesis aims to probe into Marianne Moore’s poetry from the perspective of indeterminacy of postmodernism to enhance people’s understanding of Moore’s morality and furthermore to offer a new angle to study poetry in the culture dominated by pragmatism and science and technology.