Marianne Moore

“A bold and significant study of the function of Moore’s distinct and strategic use of poetic authority… Miller’s book is also an original contribution to existing Moore scholarship in its insistence of the intricate relationship between Moore’s poetic practice and her political and cultural engagement with the world she inhabited. Miller’s analysis of the historical and cultural forces that necessarily shaped Moore’s life and work is insightful and meticulous in its range of reference… Miller’s readings of Moore’s poems about race and nationality are provocative, suggestive, and far-reaching in their implications for future considerations of modernist writers’ responses to race… Miller’s book is admirable in its carefully orchestrated balance between close readings of Moore’s work and nuanced readings of the historical context in which she worked and produced her art. The revisionary thrust of this book is important, timely, and a major contribution to Moore studies and the history of modernism.”—Celeste Goodridge, American Literature

“An elegant tribute to a complex style… Gender, race, class and power are subjects which are used [by Miller] convincingly to unearth embedded references to several aspects of social control in the poetry itself. As if in tribute to one element of Moore’s style—that of eclectic reference and quotation—Miller’s prose is densely peppered with speech marks, as she continuously returns to Moore’s diction to clarify her argument about authority as a social (and artistic) nexus.”—Emma Neale, London Quarterly

“Miller combines feminist categories of understanding with close linguistic analysis, offering a range of nuanced readings of particular poems.”—Rachel Potter, American Studies

“Cristanne Miller’s scholarship is impressive and her wide ranging references add to the book’s solidity and helpfulness for readers interested in twentieth century American poetics, in feminist issues, and more generally, in ‘questions of authority’ in our age. Highly recommended.”—Agnieszka Salska, American Studies in Europe