Moorings
A Bulletin of All Things George MooreNo 2 : Winter 2007
CONFERENCE PANEL REPORT
British Association for Victorian Studies 8th Annual Conference, 'Victorian Cultural Industries and Elites'
University of Salford, UK
August 30-September 1st 2007
I had intended on merely chairing this panel on 'George Moore and Artistic Cultures' but because of the late withdrawal of one of the panellists I ended up presenting a paper in it myself. I'm probably not therefore the best placed person to offer an oversight of the panel as a whole, but I'll try.
This panel had been organised by Ann Heilmann (University of Hull) and was to include Heilmann, Stoddard Martin (Institute of English Studies) and Michele Russo (Pescara) as speakers on the theme of George Moore and the arts. Heilmann's paper was on Moore's art criticism, while Martin focussed, as at the University of Lille earlier this year, on re-appraising Moore's concepts of music, specifically through his use of literary Wagnerism. Russo's absence meant that I stepped in with a paper derived from editing and thinking about The Untilled Field over recent months on the subject of 'Paternalistic Cultures' in Moore's work. I don't think my paper quite fitted with the other two, although it did attempt to intersect with them on the nature of Moore's engagement with concepts of culture and the producers of artistic works.
Heilmann began with a paper that was a particularly visual feast (plenty of PowerPoint slides) and at the same time managed to provide an interesting and highly focussed critique of Moore's opinions in Modern Painting in relation to, among others, Ruskin and his ideas about the nature of art. The paper contained a sustained analysis of the moments of conflict and difference between Moore's interpretation of given art works, especially by Whistler, and the response elicited from other artistic authorities. The paper also served as a very useful and timely reminder of the prolific nature of Moore's experience and experiments with genre throughout his career, but particularly in the late 1880s and 1890s. A devourer of culture in its broadest terms, Moore as presented in this paper was not only a writer about art but an astute critic of the visual in this period.
An acknowledged authority on the influence of Wagnerian musical philosophy on a range of late nineteenth and twentieth century writers, Stoddard Martin gave a paper which was a penetrating summary of the interconnections and differences between a range of writers in and around the time of Moore in relation to Wagner, while also remaining focussed on a revisionary perspective on his own earlier comments specifically on Moore in From Wagner to the Waste Land. Martin continues, as he pointed out in the paper and the following discussion, to be fascinated by the various interpretative spins that can be placed on Moore's understanding and knowledge of Wagner's work. I was reminded of a comment I came across while writing an article on Moore's Mike Fletcher on the subject of whether Moore had read Schopenhauer: the answer was that it didn't really matter, but that he had known people who had and had got them to tell him about it. Knowing whether Moore really understood or 'got' Wagner first hand or from the views of others might be read as a similar case. Moore the assimilator might well be the best way of viewing it.
My own paper sought to develop some ideas I have been thinking about for a couple of years about Moore's representations of fatherhood from his 'Don Juan trilogy' of novels about masculinity in the 1880s (A Mere Accident, Spring Days, Mike Fletcher) through to the absence or impotence of fathers in so many of his short stories (Celibates, In Single Strictness/Celibate Lives); it was also Moore who encouraged Edmund Gosse to write Father and Son. For the purposes of this paper, I decided to focus on the nature of paternalistic culture within both the family and the church in Moore's Irish short story collection The Untilled Field (1903). Having recently edited the stories, the issue of Moore's presentation of fathers in both biological and religious senses continues to interest me and my paper, given the limitations of 20 minutes, was restricted to a discussion of how the religious fathers are presented in the stories as the self-appointed guardians of a culture to which they cannot contribute and extend through procreation; in other words, the way in which Moore presents them as father-figures and protectors of a wasteland of culture that is barren and infertile precisely because they are inhibited bodily and sexually. I may well post a revised version of the paper on this site in due course.
It is in the nature of these kinds of single author panels to have a small but dedicated and interested audience, and this was no exception. But those who did listen to the three papers were able, in the subsequently lively post-presentation and pre-lunch discussion, to see new ways of looking at Moore's work.
Return to top
¦ Return to Moorings home page 
¦ Return to hub page 
Return to Table of Contents 1.2.3.
This panel had been organised by Ann Heilmann (University of Hull) and was to include Heilmann, Stoddard Martin (Institute of English Studies) and Michele Russo (Pescara) as speakers on the theme of George Moore and the arts. Heilmann's paper was on Moore's art criticism, while Martin focussed, as at the University of Lille earlier this year, on re-appraising Moore's concepts of music, specifically through his use of literary Wagnerism. Russo's absence meant that I stepped in with a paper derived from editing and thinking about The Untilled Field over recent months on the subject of 'Paternalistic Cultures' in Moore's work. I don't think my paper quite fitted with the other two, although it did attempt to intersect with them on the nature of Moore's engagement with concepts of culture and the producers of artistic works.
Heilmann began with a paper that was a particularly visual feast (plenty of PowerPoint slides) and at the same time managed to provide an interesting and highly focussed critique of Moore's opinions in Modern Painting in relation to, among others, Ruskin and his ideas about the nature of art. The paper contained a sustained analysis of the moments of conflict and difference between Moore's interpretation of given art works, especially by Whistler, and the response elicited from other artistic authorities. The paper also served as a very useful and timely reminder of the prolific nature of Moore's experience and experiments with genre throughout his career, but particularly in the late 1880s and 1890s. A devourer of culture in its broadest terms, Moore as presented in this paper was not only a writer about art but an astute critic of the visual in this period.
An acknowledged authority on the influence of Wagnerian musical philosophy on a range of late nineteenth and twentieth century writers, Stoddard Martin gave a paper which was a penetrating summary of the interconnections and differences between a range of writers in and around the time of Moore in relation to Wagner, while also remaining focussed on a revisionary perspective on his own earlier comments specifically on Moore in From Wagner to the Waste Land. Martin continues, as he pointed out in the paper and the following discussion, to be fascinated by the various interpretative spins that can be placed on Moore's understanding and knowledge of Wagner's work. I was reminded of a comment I came across while writing an article on Moore's Mike Fletcher on the subject of whether Moore had read Schopenhauer: the answer was that it didn't really matter, but that he had known people who had and had got them to tell him about it. Knowing whether Moore really understood or 'got' Wagner first hand or from the views of others might be read as a similar case. Moore the assimilator might well be the best way of viewing it.
My own paper sought to develop some ideas I have been thinking about for a couple of years about Moore's representations of fatherhood from his 'Don Juan trilogy' of novels about masculinity in the 1880s (A Mere Accident, Spring Days, Mike Fletcher) through to the absence or impotence of fathers in so many of his short stories (Celibates, In Single Strictness/Celibate Lives); it was also Moore who encouraged Edmund Gosse to write Father and Son. For the purposes of this paper, I decided to focus on the nature of paternalistic culture within both the family and the church in Moore's Irish short story collection The Untilled Field (1903). Having recently edited the stories, the issue of Moore's presentation of fathers in both biological and religious senses continues to interest me and my paper, given the limitations of 20 minutes, was restricted to a discussion of how the religious fathers are presented in the stories as the self-appointed guardians of a culture to which they cannot contribute and extend through procreation; in other words, the way in which Moore presents them as father-figures and protectors of a wasteland of culture that is barren and infertile precisely because they are inhibited bodily and sexually. I may well post a revised version of the paper on this site in due course.
It is in the nature of these kinds of single author panels to have a small but dedicated and interested audience, and this was no exception. But those who did listen to the three papers were able, in the subsequently lively post-presentation and pre-lunch discussion, to see new ways of looking at Moore's work.
MARK LLEWELLYN
Return to top
¦ Return to Moorings home page ¦ Return to hub page Return to Table of Contents 1.2.3.