The Fish (Marianne Moore) Analysis

Okay, maybe the Count wouldn't love this poem as much as we do with all the flip-flopping number of syllables, but that form serves an important purpose here. By using syllabic verse, Moore is able...

At first glance, our speaker may sound like she's kind of all over the place with the constantly shifting moods, subjects, and imagery. But when we actually get through the entire poem, we see that...

We're under the sea in "The Fish," but then we're above the water for a moment checking out a beat-up cliff that's also "defiant." And then we're in the sky—nope, make that back in the sea. So, a...

You might get a little seasick with all the up and down movement of the speaker's voice. But since it's not too long of a poem, it shouldn't be that bad. The poem's syllabic verse (check out "Form...

Titles are very important to Moore's poems. We see her using the title of "The Fish" in a way that is directly connected to the poem's body. In fact, without it, we wouldn't really know the subject...

Moore can be considered the poster child for "modern" poetry, the sort of style poets were experimenting with after World War I. The aesthetics of her poems meant a lot to the overall appreciation...

We've got plenty of lines in "The Fish" that can be a bit difficult to decode, what with all the ambiguity we see. That's not to mention some not-so-obvious symbolism that makes the poem more meani...

"The Fish" first appeared in "The Egoist" in a very different form, before all those fishy revisions. (Source.) Poet Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore liked to talk (and write) about fish. (Sourc...

The fish aren't having any sex in this poem, so we're keeping things G rated. And since Moore is getting at a lot of profound ideas associated with life and death, there's even less of an occurrenc...