Throughout my study of Marianne Moore's poetry I have found myself coming back again and again to two particularly intriguing questions that are intimately bound up with all the questions of style and mystery, confusions and morality, which the figure of Marianne Moore poses and persuades us to care about. One is her answer to her own question, "What is more precise than precision?" to which she answers, "Illusion." The other is her question, asked in the late poem "Saint Valentine," "Might verse not best confuse itself with fate?" The answer to this one is strongly implied: yes. The precise illusions that substantiate the humanity of all of us and certain uncertain affirmations of what is too much with us at the same time as it is quite beyond us, are the real subjects of this book. Without "efforts of affection"—those of the poet foremost, and those of the critic not far behind—it is doubtful that we would get very far with them. William Carlos Williams affirms the confidence we have that Marianne Moore generously provides conclusions as well as questions that are worth our efforts, that "the quality of satisfaction gathered from reading her is that one may seek long in those exciting mazes sure of coming out the right door in the end." (pp. xi-xii)
Marianne Moore is a sightseer of virtuosity; she sees what is hidden from the casual scan, including importantly those things that are hidden by their obviousness, and she shares her inspections with wit and grace. Virtuoso definitiveness is often the subject of her verse, as well as its object [as in "An Octopus"]:
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