SOURCE: Heuving, Jeanne. “‘An Artist in Refusing’.” In Omissions Are Not Accidents: Gender in the Art of Marianne Moore, pp. 17-29. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1992.

In the following essay, Heuving explores the influence of gender on Moore's voice and identity as a literary figure among predominantly male peers.

What allows us to proceed … is that we interpret, at each “moment,” the specular make-up of discourse, that is, the self-reflecting … organization of the subject in … discourse. This language work would thus attempt … to return the masculine to its own language, leaving open the possibility of a different language. Which means that the masculine would no longer be “everything.”

—Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One¹

I read my story yesterday in the proof—I like it fine—It's slight as an ice-coated twig but “it is I.”

—Marianne Moore, letter to family (1908)²

Alongside the high acclaim...