SOURCE: Hicok, Bethany. “To Work ‘Lovingly’: Marianne Moore at Bryn Mawr, 1905-1909.” Journal of Modern Literature 23, no. 3/4 (summer 2000), 483-501.

In the following essay, Hicok explores “Bryn Mawr's crucial significance to [Moore's development as a poet.”]

In an August 1921 letter to her friend Bryher, Marianne Moore wrote that her experience at Bryn Mawr gave her “security in my determination to have what I want.”² She described to Bryher the “intellectual wealth” she had received there as not something that could be “superimposed,” but something that must be “appropriated” (Selected Letters, p. 178). This statement is perhaps Moore's strongest and most direct youthful declaration of literary ambition and points to the central role that Bryn Mawr played in her career. Despite Moore's claim, Bryn Mawr's crucial significance to her development as a poet remains largely unexplored, with the notable exception of Patricia Willis' discussion of the Bryn Mawr letters. Willis argues...