MILLAY, Edna St. Vincent

Born 22 February 1892, Rockland, Maine; died 19 October 1950, Steepletop, New York

Also wrote under: Nancy Boyd

Daughter of Henry and Cora Buzzelle Millay; married Eugen Boissevain, 1923

Edna St. Vincent Millay was the oldest of three daughters. Her father, a schoolteacher and school superintendent, left the household when Millay was seven. Her mother supported the family by working as a practical nurse and did her utmost to encourage all three girls to develop their creative talents. Millay first received recognition as a poet when her long poem "Renascence" was selected in 1912 for inclusion in The Lyric Year. However, "Renascence" narrowly missed receiving one of the three prizes awarded for the best poems in the volume. Publication of the anthology brought forth a storm of protest. Readers maintained that Millay's youthful statement of despair, rebirth, and affirmation was the strongest in the book. Her success brought her to the attention of Caroline Dow, who made it possible for the poet to attend Vassar College. In 1917, soon after graduation, Millay moved to Greenwich Village, where she quickly became a legend.

Several images of Millay during this period emerge: the serious artist living on limited funds; the bohemian, careless of health and propriety; the passionate woman involved in brief, intoxicating love affairs. During her Village years, Millay published Renascence, and Other Poems (1917, reprinted several times, most recently in 1994) and A Few Figs from Thistles (1920). The latter, with its famous "candle" quatrain (beginning "My candle burns at both ends; / It shall not last the night") and flippant love poems, captured the imaginations of the "emancipated" youth of the early 1920s. At the same time, Millay finished the poems that would appear in Second April (1921), and wrote and directed a pacifist verse play, Aria da Capo (1920).

In 1922 Millay received the Pulitzer Prize for The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver (reprinted 1983), an expanded edition of Figs with eight new sonnets. The following year, she married a Dutch businessman, Eugen Boissevain, whose first wife had been Inez Milholland, the famous suffragist, who died in 1916. Millay, who had admired Milholland at college, dedicated to her a sonnet honoring the women's rights movement.

Eventually, Boissevain gave up his coffee business to manage Millay's highly successful poetry-reading tours and to superintend Steepletop, their farm in upstate New York. Their marriage lasted 27 years, until Boissevain's death in 1949. During these years, Millay produced several books of poems—The Buck in the Snow (1918), Fatal Interview (1931), Wine from These Grapes (1934)—that are more subdued and more contemplative in tone than her earlier work.

In 1927 Millay became active in the movement to save Sacco and Vanzetti. She signed petitions, demonstrated, and, in a futile interview, tried to persuade the governor of Massachusetts to grant clemency. Her involvement in this case is reflected in several poems, most notably "Justice Denied in Massachusetts." Growing increasingly concerned about the spread of fascism throughout Europe and the start of World War II, Millay renounced her former pacifism in the late 1930s. In a series of political poems, she argued for American military preparedness and aid to France and England. Unfortunately, these poems are quite poor, relying on jangling rhythms and trite language. Collected in Make Bright the Arrows (1940), they drew a barrage of adverse criticism.

Millay is particularly interesting because, at a time when modern poetry was abandoning traditional forms, she chose to write ballads, lyrics, and sonnets. Though Millay's later work is somewhat more experimental, she usually stayed within familiar structures, adapting them to her own use. Millay's strongest poems work precisely because of the balance maintained between the emotional intensity of her subjects and the disciplined craftsmanship of her forms. As Floyd Dell said, "She learned the molds first, into which she poured her emotions while hot."

Many of her first poems ("Renascence," "God's World") reveal innocence and youthful exuberance. In "Recuerdo," the young lovers, after riding "back and forth all night on the ferry," impulsively give bags of fruit and "all our money but our subway fares" to an old woman newspaper seller. Other early verses, however, exhibit a mocking, skeptical attitude toward life and love. In many of the poems from A Few Figs from Thistles, Millay creates a bold, unconventional woman persona who is frankly attracted to men and who initiates and terminates love affairs at will. In Sonnet XI, for instance, she tells her lover, "I shall forget you presently, my dear,/ So make the most of this, your little day." The poem ends with the forthright statement "Whether or not we find what we are seeking/ Is idle, biologically speaking." In another poem, the persona glories in being a "wicked girl" and declares, "If I can't be sorry, why,/ I might as well be glad."

A more serious note appears in Second April (1921). The skepticism remains, but the lightness is gone. In "Spring," Millay states that "Life in itself/Is nothing" and compares the month of April to "an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers." The love poems in this book are somber. "Sonnet XIX," for example, begins, "And you as well must die, beloved dust/ And all your beauty stand you in no stead."

Throughout all of Millay's poetry runs the message that life is short and love ephemeral. Human relationships, however sweet, cannot last; the theme of death constantly recurs. The early "Passer Mortuus Est" begins, "Death devours all lovely things," and the late "Epitaph for the Race of Man" mourns, "Earth, unhappy planet, born to die." Millay has been criticized for writing only of herself and her love affairs, but many of her poems reflect wider concerns. Her love poems, however, far from being sentimental effusions, are central to her vision of life's brevity and impermanence.

The recipient of much acclaim in the 1920s, Millay is less popular today. Feminist readers tend to dismiss her work as old fashioned and conventional. This is unfortunate because she, though no structural innovator, is in many ways close to the feminist-oriented poets of the 1970s. Certainly Millay's use of highly personal material, her fresh, forthright language, and her creation of strong female personae anticipate modern women's poetry. Millay's finest poems, moreover, ensure her position as an important American woman poet.

Other Works:

The Lamp and the Bell (1921). Two Slatterns and a King (1921). Distressing Dialogues (1924). The King's Henchman (1927, 1965). Poems Selected for Young People (1929, 1979). The Princess Marries the Page (1932). Conversation at Midnight (1937). Huntsman, What Quarry? (1939). Collected Sonnets (1941, 1988). Invocation to the Muses (1941). The Murder of Lidice (1942, 1978). Collected Lyrics (1943, 1981). Poem and Prayer for an Invading Army (1944). Mine the Harvest (1954). Collected Poems (1956, 1999). Thanksgiving 1950 (1966). Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay (1972). On Thought in Harness (1981). Sonnets & a Few Poems (1982). Take Up the Song: Poems (1986). What Lips My Lips Have Kissed (1989). The Rebirth (1892-1950: An Appreciation (1992). Selected Poems: The Centenary Edition (1992). Forceless Upon Our Backs There Fall (1992). Grace from Simple Stone (1992). Early Poems (1999).

Bibliography:

Andrews, B., No Wider Than the Heart: A Play in Two Acts, Based on the Life and Work of the Poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay (1994). Atkins, E., Edna St. Vincent Millay and Her Times (1936). August, B. T., The Poetic Use of Womanhood in Five Modern American Poets: Moore, Millay, Rukeyser, Levertov, and Plath (dissertation 1995). Beisch, J. S., "Edna Who? The Critical (Mis)fortunes of a Woman Poet in Decline" (thesis 1991). Bogan, L., Achievements in American Poetry (1951). Britten, N. A., Edna St. Vincent Millay (1982). Bukovinsky, J., ed., Women of Words: A Personal Introduction to Thirty-Five Important Writers (1994). Cheney, A., Millay in the Village (1975). Daffron, C., Edna St. Vincent Millay (1989). Dash, J., A Life of One's Own (1973). Dell, F., Homecoming: An Autobiography (1933). Dinkins, E. V., "Night's Sister: Voices of Desire in the Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay" (dissertation 1995). Fleeger, C., "Edna St. Vincent Millay: A Study in Her Centennial Year" (thesis 1993). Freedman, D. P., ed., Millay at 100: A Critical Reappraisal (1995). Gilbert, S. and S. Gubar, Shakespeare's Sisters: Feminist Essays on Women Poets (1978). Gould, J., The Poet and Her Book (1969). Gray, J., Edna St. Vincent Millay (1967). Gurko, M., Restless Spirit (1962). Mattson, F. J., Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892-1950 (1991). Minot, W. S., Edna St. Vincent Millay: A Critical Revaluation (dissertation 1995). Moore, J. V., "Selving, Sexuality, and Sestinas: The Poetics of Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Marilyn Hacker" (thesis 1996). Nierman, J., Edna St. Vincent Millay: A Reference Guide (1977). Patton, J. J., Edna St. Vincent Millay as a Verse Dramatist (dissertation 1995). Perkins, C. N., 100 Authors Who Shaped World History (1996). Rosta, P., The Magazine that Taught Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Millay How to Write (1985). Sheean, V., The Indigo Bunting (1951). The Shores of Light (1952). Wilson, E., I Thought of Daisy (1929).

Reference works:

CP. NAW (1971). NCAB. Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States (1995).

Other references:

Commentary (June 1992). Criticism (1995). Genre (1998). Iowa Review (Fall 1992). Style (1995). Twentieth Century Literature (Spring 1986).

—ENID DAME,

UPDATED BY SYDONIE BENET