Animal Complex In Marianne Moore's Poetry

Modern American poetess Marianne Moore contributes a lot to the development of modern American poetry through her own writing style and idea of poetics. Criticism over Moore's work ranges from feminism to artistic techniques to comparative study; domestic studies on Moore mainly focus on Moore's acquaintance with the Chinese aesthetics. Animals play a significant role in Moore's poetic innovation in content and form, but most scholars are limited to study Moore's animal complex from the perspective of ecocriticism, focusing on Moore's interest in nature. Based on the research of the formation of Moore's animal complex, this paper tries to analyze the influences of Moore's animal complex on her poetry composing, further digging out Moore's views on nature and morality as well as her poetic ideas.This thesis is composed of five parts. Introduction introduces the poet's life experience and her animal poems, presenting an overview of the achievements made both in China and overseas concerning the study of Moore and her major works. Chapter one unveils the factors influencing the shaping of Moore's animal complex:social factors, family factors and individual factors. Chapter two investigates animal complex presented in Moore's poems. The poet prefers to select animals as her subject, constructing an integrated organism by means of the acute vocabularies and vivid animal images and demonstrating animal theme through innovation in poetic forms. Chapter three explores the rich and profound significance contained in Moore's animal complex. Moore expresses her views on nature through her animal complex. On one hand, she bears a reverence for nature; concerns about the ugly and beauty in nature. On the other hand, she praises the animality and explores her views on morality. Projecting her ideal moralities onto her animals, Moore emphasizes courage and humility in life. Meanwhile Moore's expresses her concern over the ontological problem of poetry based on her preference for the exotic and novel animal materials. Moore holds the view that poetry focuses on nature and on reality, exhibiting the authentic world. For Moore, poetry should present "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," that is, to seek the genuine as it serves as the redemption of poetry. As the conclusion, based on the above studies and analysis, the final chapter elaborates on the Moore's animal complex and its significance for our further study of Marianne Moore. From the studies of Moore's animal complex, the thesis finds that Moore makes innovation of her poetic content and form by means of her animal subjects. Besides, she utilizes animal complex to reconsider the relationship between human and nature, pondering over ways and significance of human existence. Moore also expresses her concern over the ontological problem of poetry, arguing for poetry's return to reality and genuineness.