James Merrill's manners and Elizabeth Bishop's dismay

Twentieth Century Literature, Summer, 2004 by Luke Carson

Merrill's tribute to Bishop, "Overdue Pilgrimage to Nova Scotia," appears only a few pages before "Self-Portrait in a Tyvek Windbreaker" in A Scattering of Salts. Indeed, Merrill's final collection turns repeatedly to Bishop, as if to take the measure of the lessons he learned from the female role model who ought to have helped his anima prevent him from becoming "pinched and mean" (Different Person 141). Before considering Merrill's tribute, however, I will consider in more detail how Bishop struggled with the question of manners and morals in her work.

In "Efforts of Affection," Bishop reflects on "the unaccustomed deference [and] the exquisitely prolonged etiquette" (Prose 156) of Marianne Moore and her mother. Trying to summarize these reflections at the end of her memoir, she famously becomes "foolishly bemused," and has "a sort of subliminal glimpse of the capital letter M multiplying," spelling out

      Marianne's monogram; mother; manners; morals; and I catch myself
       murmuring, "Manners and morals; manners as morals? Or is it
       morals as manners?" Since like Alice, "in a dreamy sort of way,"
       I can't answer either question, it doesn't much matter which way
       I put it; it seems to be making sense. (156)

Bishop's bemusement is apparent in the mixed tones of her memoir, which teases the Moores behind their backs for their anachronistic manners and morals. The memoir focuses on the idiosyncrasy and anachronism of the Moores' "chinoiserie of manners" (134) without really drawing any serious connection to their moral dimension; their exercise seems largely to be morally neutral, a genteel leftover of the past.

Bishop is nonetheless puzzled by the way in which the Moores treat manners as if they have a profound ethical significance in spite of what seems the moral neutrality of their code. One way in which Bishop explores the relationship of morals and manners is to draw attention to situations that are morally questionable. When Bishop first introduces the word manners into the memoir it is in connection with tennis, "the rules and conventions" of which, according to Bishop, Moore seemed to enjoy "as much as the sport. She engaged a young black boy to play with her," but "He was finally dismissed because of his lack of tennis manners; his worst offense seemed to be that instead of 'Serve!' he would say 'Okay!'" (131). This anecdote suggests that Bishop is aware of the power of the Moores' manners to distinguish insiders from outsiders. This parallels the story of the "very well known and polished writer [who] was never invited to Cumberland Street although his friends were" (137). When Bishop "asked innocently why [she] never saw him there ... Marianne gave [her] her serious, severe look and said, 'He contradicted Mother.'"

In both of these stories, manners become a moral issue in a way that anticipates Bishop's puzzled conclusion to her memoir. However, neither story elicits our respect for the Moores' manners. To see contradicting Mary Warner Moore as bad manners may simply reflect an arbitrary system of manners rather than a morally rooted one. Since we know neither their guest's tone of voice nor the topic of discussion, it is difficult to judge his behavior; it is possible, for example, that in his world of manners and morals, contradiction signals the respect we confer on others in conversation by acknowledging their ability to reason. While Bishop does not quite take sides, her tone suggests that the Moores' judgment can be merely idiosyncratic.