Human and animal in ‘the Open’: an exploration of image and worlding in the poetry of Marianne Moore and João Cabral de Melo Neto

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This thesis firstly aims at discussing the early works of American poet Marianne Moore (1887-1972) through the bio-philosophical perspectives developed since the investigations of Estonian Jacob von Uexküll (1864-1944). The study elucidates Uexküll’s research on the web-like forms of life that is the Umwelt of animals and Moore’s creation of poetic environments. Such investigations provide a basis for the analysis of Moore’s animals and environments in dialogue with Martin Heidegger’s (1889-1976) concepts of “poverty in world”, and “animal captivation”. Uexküll’s and Heidegger’s concepts are revised by Italian Giorgio Agamben (1942- ), who proposes that there is an openness in the state of being ontologically captivated, caused by interactional processes occurring within the environment. Subsequently, taking into account these same perspectives, this thesis offers a comparative study of Marianne Moore and Brazilian poet João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999), engaging, respectively, her

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