Biography

Edna St. Vincent Millay was raised in a small Maine town by a highly supportive divorced mother, who encouraged her daughters to read, develop their musical talents, and follow their ambitions. Millay graduated from Vassar College and then moved to the Greenwich Village section of New York City, home to avant-garde artists and political radicals. She acted and wrote plays for the Provincetown Players, located in the Village, and became known as the epitome of the modern woman because of her vivacity, sexual liberation, and independent spirit. She was also an activist who protested the Sacco and Vanzetti executions and argued for America's early entrance into World War II. Her works include Renascence and Other Poems (1917) and her Pulitzer prize-winning Ballad of the Harp-Weaver (1923).

Explorations

The anthology includes love sonnets, I Think I Should Have Loved You Presently (1922) and [I, being born a woman] (1923), in which a woman addresses a man. There are plenty of love sonnets in the Anglo-American tradition -- but the usual pattern is for these to be male voices speaking to or about women; and when women poets respond on the subject of love or sexuality, their poems have traditionally been abstract and spiritual. Like Claude McKay, Millay uses tight traditional forms to achieve intensity: disturbing and heretical themes in poised, polished stanzas. When she writes about love, passion, or faith, she uses plain language; to read Millay is to experience an often-astounding contrast between the urbanity and civility of her lines and the surprising thoughts that erupt within them.

1. Compare the language that Millay uses in the first four or five lines of each of these sonnets. What differences in tone and usage do you hear? How serious do you think the speaker is at the opening of each poem?

2. At the end of [I, being born a woman], the speaker suddenly breaks into her own verse with " -- let me make it plain." Is there a shift in voice thereafter? How does the closing of this poem comment on the language and substance of its first dozen lines?

3. Do these two sonnets illuminate each other? When Millay uses the word "love" in each of them, what does she mean by it? What seems to be the larger social, cultural, and moral context in which this "love" is contemplated or experienced?

Other sites to consult:

• Edna St. Vincent Millay: Renascence and Other Poems. Millay's first book, posted on the Project Bartleby site.
• Collected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. A collection of forty short poems (most not included on the Project Bartleby site).
• Millay bibliography. An Annotated Bibliography of Works about Edna St.Vincent Millay (1974-1993), With Supplement (1912-1973), compiled by Judith Nierman and John J. Patton (University of Maryland).
• American Modernism. Includes a brief introduction, materials on other writers of the time, and a bibliography of works by and about Millay. From Paul P. Reuben's PAL: Perspectives in American Literature site (California State University, Stanislaus)
• Edna St. Vincent Millay. A detailed biography and poems from Renascence. Site maintained by Andrea Dunham.