Omissions Are Not Accidents: Gender in the Art of Marianne Moore

Feminist literary criticism has been able to discuss the significance of a woman writer's gender to her literary production most propitiously by analyzing its representation of gender and of gender issues. But for women writers, such as Marianne Moore, who refuse to make gender a central subject of their writing, this approach offers limited insight. And yet, gender is a crucial determination of Moore's poetic production, and much of her poetry, especially her earlier poetry, was a creative, and feminist, response to that determination.

Omissions Are Not Accidents argues that the aesthetic achievement of Moore's poetry can better be appreciated and judged by considering how gender structures her work. By attending to Moore's position as a woman within her culture and within language, Heuving has established a comprehensive explanation of the chronological development of her innovative writing.