Victoria Bazin's interpretations of Marianne Moore's poetry draw extensively on archival resources to trace her influences and to describe her own distinctive modernist aesthetic. Bazin argues that it was Moore's feminist adaptation of pragmatism that shaped her poetry, producing a complex response to the new expanding consumer culture, one that explores not only the aesthetic pleasures but also the ethical consequences of "too much."

Victoria Bazin is a senior lecturer at the Northumbria University, UK

Contents: Introduction; Modernity, poetry and pragmatism; Critical constructions of 'Miss Moore': the poetics of purity; Instruments of dissection: syllabic verse in the age of mechanical destruction; 'Just looking': the aesthetics of display; 'A hybrid method of composition': montage and flexible forms of faith; 'Technical mastery' and imperial power: cultivating a poetic wilderness; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.