For my senior seminar in English Literature at Harding University, I presented a paper entitled The Sublime and The Beautiful in the Poetry of Mary Oliver. I have been doing research on western culture's concept of beauty and the place of beauty in our post-modern world throughout my undergraduate years. In this paper, I apply the aestheic theory of Wendy Steiner, as found in her book Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-Century Aestheics, to the poetry of Mary Oliver. I admit, my paper is not as focussed as it should be to date; the paper's biggest flaw is that I tried to address Oliver's entire career instead of focussing on a specific volume of her poetry. However, the research is ongoing, and I am excited about the prospects on the horizon.
my bibliography
If you have never read Mary Oliver before, I would recommend starting with either American Primitive or Twelve Moons.
Oliver won the Pulitzer Prize for American Primitive in 1984. When I read this volume for the first time, I had to stop every few poems and set it down because the poetry was potent and rich -- I needed time to digest it!
Twelve Moons is an earlir volume, published in 1979. Although the poems stand beautifully on their own--as do the poems in American Primitive--Twelve Moons was meant to be read as a cohesive work. The volume is tied together by twelve moon poems, an there is a gradual progression from each poem to the next.
If you are thinking of purchasing a volume of Oliver's poetry and intend for your first purchase to be your last, or if you wish to simply get a taste of Oliver's poetry over the course of her career, then I would recommend New and Selected Poems: Volume One, a collection which won the National Book Award in 1992.
Link to a bibliography of Mary Oliver's works.