The Paper Nautilus

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The Paper Nautilus is a poem written by American poet Marianne Moore. This work made its first appearance was in 1941, and then again in Moore’s book of poetry, The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore in 1967. This poem was originally written as a gift to Elizabeth Bishop.^[1] The Complete Poems was a representation of her poetry as she had wanted it remembered.^[2]

[edit] Interpretation

On the surface this poem is about a female Argonaut (also known as a paper nautilus because of the fragile, paper thin egg case the females secrete), who has just laid eggs.^[3] Originally a gift for Elizabeth Bishop in exchange for an actual Argonaut shell, and according to Jeanne Heuving, a literary critic, this poem is about a maternal protectiveness that moves from an internal protectiveness to a need for the inhabitors of the eggs to break free.^[4] The internal protectiveness is represented by the lines,

  Not for These
  the paper nautilus
  constructs her thin glass shell.

  Giving her perishable
  souvenir of hope, a dull
  white outside and smooth-
  edged inner surface
  glossy as the sea, the watchful
  maker of it guards it
  day and night.[5]

In contrast to this, such images as

  Hercules, bitten
  by a crab loyal to the hydra,
  was hindered to succeed,
  the intensively
  watched eggs coming from
  the shell free it when they are freed,--[6] 

which provide insight into the resilience of the fragile egg, and its inhabitant’s ability to overcome dangers and break through the shell. It is possible that these references signify the different aspects of Moore’s relationship to Bishop. From their early relationship, Moore took on a very maternal role in the younger poet’s life. According to Laura Ebberson, Moore “somewhat eliminated [the maternal] void” left in Bishop after her own mother died, “by providing support and guidance for Bishop.”^[7] While in the beginning of their relationship Bishop took every bit of guidance Moore gave her in response to her poetry, later on she began to break away from Moore’s suggestions, responding to them with more defiance than her usual submission.

Another interpretation could be what Sabine Sielke calls “a distinction of economies,”^[8] in which the opening lines –

   For authorities whose hopes
   are shaped by mercenaries?
   Writers entrapped by
   teatime fame and by  
   commuter's comforts. [9]

illustrate the difficulties of a writer who is trapped by the whims of his or her audience. This interpretation could make the references to Hercules’ struggles against the hydra one of a writer struggling to overcome the expectations set upon their work by societal standards. The lines directly following “Not for these/ the paper nautilus/ constructs her thin glass shell.”^[10] indicates the way a writer works autonomously without the reader or “mercenaries” judgment in mind. And the lines, “buried eight-fold in her eight / arms … / her glass ram’shorn cradle-freight / is hid but not crushed” ^[11]could be interpreted as a writer striving to protect her work as a mother would her offspring.

[edit] References