Cultural critique and abstraction
Subtitle: Marianne Moore and the avant-garde
By: Elisabeth W. Joyce.
Publisher: Bucknell University Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Lewisburg; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 157
Subjects: Moore, Marianne, 1887-1972 -- Criticism and interpretation.; Women and literature -- United States -- History -- 20th century.; Avant-garde (Aesthetics) -- United States -- History -- 20th century.; Experimental poetry, American -- History and criticism.; Abstraction in literature.; Culture in literature.
Description: This study of Marianne Moore and the visual arts focuses on how art productions serve to break down and re-create cultural practice, proving that culture is a mutable organism, reluctant to change, but not impervious to it. In doing so, author Elisabeth W. Joyce shows that, even though Moore may have restricted herself to the quiet, provincial life of Brooklyn, her poetry attests to her resistance to the constrictions imposed by the predominating bourgeoisie.

This study presents the bifurcation between modernism and the avant-garde where, while the modernists retreated from engagement in society, the avant-gardistes remained focused on political and social issues in order to critique stifling cultural phenomena so that art could effect cultural changes. In taking this stance, instead of viewing Moore's poetry as typically and provincially American, Joyce places her in the international and radical art movements of the early twentieth century.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.