Moorings
A Bulletin of All Things George MooreNo 1 : Summer 2007
REVIEWS
GEORGE MOORE: ARTISTIC VISIONS AND LITERARY WORLDS
EDITED BY MARY PIERSE
CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS PUBLISHING, 2006
ISBN: 9 781847 180292
In this new collection of eighteen essays, editor Mary Pierce offers the first truly international perspective on the long and diverse career of one of Ireland's most original and provocative writers. With contributors from Ireland, England, the United States, Brazil, Greece, Italy, France, and Spain, George Moore: Artistic Visions and Literary Worlds examines such subjects as the parallels between his work and that of Voltaire, his knowledge of then-contemporary Biblical scholarship, and his transformations of Greek, Gaelic, and French sources. Much of this research reveals how disingenuous were Moore’s declarations of his own ignorance; although he frequently played the role of a naïf, in truth he read widely and assiduously, and he knew the right questions to ask willing friends and paid assistants. Other essays touch on the reception of his work at home and abroad, including his importance to Latin American writers and the effect of the generally inadequate Gaelic translations of The Untilled Field on Moore’s Irish reputation and the short story in Gaelic. Among the most intriguing discoveries revealed by these reception studies is the effort of Moore’s Spanish admirers to cast him in the implausible role of a Catholic nationalist in order to circumvent censorship by the Franco’s Fascist regime. One can only imagine Moore’s horror.
Adrian Frazier opens the collection by querying why Moore’s work continues to struggle for an audience and argues that the reason lies in Moore’s own high standards. Because Moore he took art so seriously, he often doubted his own efforts, inadvertently giving ammunition to personal enemies like Yeats who subsequently led later readers astray, particularly those who fail to understand the comic genius of his frequently absurd self-portraiture. Several of the essays that follow also take up Moore’s fictional portraits of the artist. In what she calls “dramas of sterility” Fabienne Gaspari traces in Moore’s multi-layered metafictional treatment of the author-figure his engagement with contemporary theories of art and the enactment of his own evolving views, while Ann Heilmann’s analysis of the writer as character in Vain Fortune situates this novel within turn-of-the-century speculation concerning hysteria, sexuality, and gender.
Although Pierce has grouped four of the essays under the subtopic of “gender,” most touch on Moore’s preoccupation with the subject. One essay provides a richly historicized analysis that places Moore’s thinking on celibacy in dialogue with Havelock Ellis, Kraftt-Ebing, arguably two of the most influential sexologists of the period, while another explores Moore’s unusually prescient engagement with the conditions and hopes of the “new woman.”
Several pieces that don’t group easily with the others nonetheless are particularly interesting, especially Lucy McDiarmid’s detailed readings of two key passages in Hail and Farewell. By looking closely at Moore’s depiction of the gestures of the body and the precise language of his dialogue, she brings to light his subtle exploration of the paradoxes of class and cultural difference. Several studies of a specific work’s development through multiple versions serve to remind us how much matter of style are inseparable from ideology, as repeatedly the authors find Moore discovering more a more sophisticated and complex perspective as he reworks his prose.
Although the essays in the volume are somewhat short, the collection offers a significant addition to the field and requisite reading for anyone interested in Moore's writing, turn-of-the-century literature and the treatment of gender, or the interrelations of multi-national literary traditions.
Although Pierce has grouped four of the essays under the subtopic of “gender,” most touch on Moore’s preoccupation with the subject. One essay provides a richly historicized analysis that places Moore’s thinking on celibacy in dialogue with Havelock Ellis, Kraftt-Ebing, arguably two of the most influential sexologists of the period, while another explores Moore’s unusually prescient engagement with the conditions and hopes of the “new woman.”
Several pieces that don’t group easily with the others nonetheless are particularly interesting, especially Lucy McDiarmid’s detailed readings of two key passages in Hail and Farewell. By looking closely at Moore’s depiction of the gestures of the body and the precise language of his dialogue, she brings to light his subtle exploration of the paradoxes of class and cultural difference. Several studies of a specific work’s development through multiple versions serve to remind us how much matter of style are inseparable from ideology, as repeatedly the authors find Moore discovering more a more sophisticated and complex perspective as he reworks his prose.
Although the essays in the volume are somewhat short, the collection offers a significant addition to the field and requisite reading for anyone interested in Moore's writing, turn-of-the-century literature and the treatment of gender, or the interrelations of multi-national literary traditions.
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