Pagan Poems

Study for the Armchair Critic (circa 1880), soft-ground transfer pencil on thin wove paper, by Mary Cassatt in the Williams College Museum of Art (GMi). This drawing of George Moore is contemporary with the false start of his literary career as a pagan poet. He was still bearded as in recent portraits by Édouard Manet.

Pagan Poems (1881) is George Moore’s third book. Published in London when he was 29 years old and residing in London, Pagan Poems was never reprinted though a few its 28 poems reappeared or were echoed in different contexts. “A Modern Poem,” for example, differs in details from A Modern Lover (1883) but has that novel’s sad and cynical perspective on life.