Edna St. Vincent Millay

Born February 22, 1892 (Rockland, Maine)
Died October 19, 1950 (Austerlitz, New York)

Poet and dramatist

"Millay is the poetic voice of eternal youth, feminine revolt and liberation, and sensitivity and suggestiveness."

Robert L. Gale, author of ‘‘Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Life.’’

Recognized as one of the most accomplished poets of the twentieth century, Edna St. Vincent Millay was an especially famous and popular cultural figure during the Roaring Twenties. Her work was widely admired by critics as well as a varied audience. Millay became a kind of spokesperson for the post-World War I generation of young people, especially women, who were expressing their rebellion against tradition and their insistence on freedom of thought and behavior. In her days as a young poet in New York's Greenwich Village artistic community, she embodied the new, sexually liberated woman of the period.

A budding talent

Edna St.Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine, but spent most of her childhood living with her mother, Cora Buzzelle Millay, and two sisters in the nearby town of Camden. Millay was fondly called "Vincent" by her family and friends because her parents had planned to name their son Vincent. When they instead had a girl, they gave her the middle name of Vincent. The inability of Millay's father, Henry Tolman Millay, to act responsibly and support his family led to her parents' divorce

when she was eight, and she rarely saw her father after that. Millay's strong-willed, independent mother worked as a visiting nurse, often leaving her daughters to fend for themselves and encouraging them to be self-reliant. She also nurtured their love of literature and music by making sure, despite the family's poverty, that they always had access to books and music lessons.

From her earliest years, Millay excelled at both music (she once thought of becoming a concert pianist) and writing. Through her mother's influence she was exposed to the work of such well-regarded poets as William Shakespeare (1564–1616), John Milton (1608–1674), and William Wordsworth (1770–1850), as well as novels by nineteenth-century authors Charles Dickens (1812–1870) and George Eliot (1819–1880). In her early teens Millay had some poems published in the St. Nicholas children's magazine. In high school, she contributed poems to the school's magazine and also served as its editor.

Millay graduated in 1909, but the struggling family had no money to send her to college. The launching of her literary career came about through her mother, who spotted an advertisement for a poetry contest. The winning works would be published in an anthology to be called The Lyric Year. Millay submitted a long poem titled "Renaissance," which was written in traditional couplet form (two-line stanzas, in which the last words in each line rhyme) and infused with a mystical sense of appreciation for the imagination.

One of the contest's judges, Ferdinand Earle, immediately recognized Millay as a major talent and began corresponding with her (it was he who suggested that she change the poem's title to "Renascence"), predicting that she would win first prize. As it turned out, the rest of the judges disagreed and gave Millay the fourth prize. Still, when the poem appeared in The Lyric Year in November 1912, Millay attracted a great deal of attention, with critics hailing her as a poet destined for greatness.

One of Millay's new admirers was Caroline B. Dow, director of the YWCA's (Young Women's Christian Association) National Training School. She helped Millay get a scholarship to Vassar College, a prestigious women's school in Poughkeepsie, New York. After spending a semester of preparation at New York City's Barnard College, Millay entered Vassar in the fall of 1913. She studied literature and languages and published poems and plays in the campus publications. She also played the lead in a play she had written, The Princess Marries the Page (not published until 1932). During her college years, Millay made several strong friendships with her fellow students and received a solid grounding in literary history that would serve her well, although, as a young woman already in her early twenties, she disliked Vassar's strict rules.

The Bohemian life in New York City

Millay's first poetry volume, Renascence and Other Poems, appeared in 1917, soon after Millay's graduation from Vassar. It includes six sonnets (a poem with fourteen lines, often of ten syllables each, and employing a regular rhyme scheme), a poetic form that Millay would use often throughout her career. The book and the poetry readings she gave established Millay's reputation in the literary world but did not bring her much money. She moved to New York City, where she lived in a small apartment with her sister Norma and made a meager living through her work as an actress (and sometimes a playwright and director) with the Provincetown Players, an experimental theater group.

Millay became involved with a community of young artists and writers living in the city's Bohemian (socially unconventional) neighborhood of Greenwich Village. They projected a new, modern perspective with their belief in nonconformity (refusal to go along with society's expectations), equality between men and women, and free love. Millay began a series of love affairs, the first one with journalist and playwright Floyd Dell (1887–1969), who was an editor of the socialist publication (the belief in a political and economic system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned by the community as a whole, rather than by individuals) The Masses.

In 1918 Millay met Arthur Davison Ficke (1883–1945), a poet with whom she had corresponded for several years. Ficke stopped in New York to visit Millay on his way to military service in France (the United States had just entered World War I, a conflict that began in Europe in 1914 when Great Britain, France, and Italy opposed Germany's aggression). The two had an intense, three-day affair that Millay would write about in several of her best-known poems. Although the romance eventually ended, Millay and Ficke remained friends for the rest of their lives.

To support herself, Millay began selling short stories to the popular magazine Ainslee's, writing under the name Nancy Boyd. These were tales populated by characters from her own life: young writers and artists who lived unconventional, nonconformist lives in Greenwich Village. In 1920 Millay met

Modernist Poet T.S. Eliot

Unlike Edna St.Vincent Millay, T.S.Eliot wrote in a distinctly modern style, creating poetry that was not easily grasped by a wide audience. Nevertheless, both his poems and his literary criticism had a profound influence on the development of twentieth-century literature.

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in 1888. Educated at Harvard University and England's Oxford University, Eliot studied literature and philosophy and edited the Harvard literary magazine, the Advocate. After earning his PhD at Oxford, he settled in London, where he first worked as a teacher at a boy's school and then took a position at a bank.

It was at this time that Eliot also began to write both poetry and literary criticism, publishing his work in a number of journals and magazines. In 1917 his acclaimed poetry collection Prufrock and Other Observations was published. Like most of Eliot's work the poems in this work feature a blend of formal and informal speech, a use of both symbolism and realistic detail, and vivid metaphors.

As the 1920s began Eliot suffered from a nervous breakdown brought on by the combined pressures of a failed marriage and exhausting work and creative demands. While recovering, he wrote the book-length poem for which he is most famous, The Waste Land (1922). Highly unconventional and innovative, it is one of the most celebrated and controversial works of twentieth-century literature. Divided into five parts, The Waste Land is made up of seemingly random, disconnected images. It is narrated by several very different voices and includes both everyday and lyrical language, including many quotes from other writers. The poem's main theme is the disillusionment and spiritual emptiness of the post-World War I period.

In 1925 Eliot became an editor at the London publishing firm of Faber and Faber. From 1922 until 1939 he also served as editor of the distinguished literary journal Criterion, in which appeared the work of such important modern writers as Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust.

By 1927 Eliot became a British citizen. He also joined the Anglican Church, and his strong commitment to spiritual and religious values is evident in such volumes as The Journey of the Magi (1927) and Ash Wednesday (1930). During the 1930s he spent periods of varying length in the United States, teaching and lecturing at several universities, and he published several books describing his ideas on literature and critical thought.

Eliot also began writing plays in verse, which were generally well-received by both critics and audiences. The best known of these are probably Murder in the Cathedral (1936) and The Cocktail Party.

Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. He died in 1965.

Edmund Wilson (1895–1972), who would one day become a famous literary critic and who was so taken with the vibrant young poet that he asked her to marry him; she declined. Wilson was then serving as editor of the sophisticated magazine Vanity Fair, and he began publishing Millay's poems in its pages. This brought her not only more income but also a wider audience.

Millay's second poetry volume, A Few Figs from Thistles, appeared in 1920. These poems are marked by a breezy, carefree tone that, despite the disapproval of some critics, accurately reflected the rebellious mood and freedom-seeking lifestyle of a daring, feminist-minded young woman of the 1920s. Perhaps most representative of this perspective is the often-quoted "First Fig," which is probably Millay's most famous poem: "My candle burns at both ends;/It will not last the night;/But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—/It gives a lovely light."

Despite the unconventional voice and content found in her poetry, Millay differed in one significant way from some of the other significant poets of the period. Unlike modernists T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) and e.e. cummings (1894–1962), Millay usually employed not free verse but traditional forms that incorporated set patterns of rhyme and meter. In fact, she was said to straddle two centuries, in that her poems often looked and sounded like those of the nineteenth century, while their themes and sentiments were drawn from the twentieth.

Hard work, and time in Europe

One of Millay's favorite achievements was a one-act play in verse, Aria da Capo, that was produced by the Provincetown Players during their 1919–20 season. Millay's next volume of poetry, Second April (1921), contains the same childlike spirit and appreciation for nature found in her previous work, along with a new sense of disenchantment and loss. Particularly moving were the sonnets written in honor of Millay's Vassar classmate and friend Dorothy Coleman, who had died in the influenza epidemic that gripped the world in 1918. Another notable poem in this collection is "The Bean-Stalk," based on the fairy tale of Jack and the beanstalk, for which Millay had earlier won an one-hundred-dollar award from the well-respected Poetry magazine.

Overworked and exhausted, Millay was still able to set off on a two-year trip through Europe in early 1921. Vanity Fair agreed to pay her a regular salary in exchange for articles, written under the name Nancy Boyd, that she was to send back to the United States. Soon after her arrival in Europe, Millay finished a five-act verse play called The Lamp and the Bell, which would be performed at the fiftieth-anniversary celebration of Vassar College's alumnae association. Based loosely on the fairy tale of Snow White and Rose Red, this work highlighted the value of strong friendships between women.

During her time in Europe, Millay traveled to France, England, Albania, Italy, Austria, and Hungary. Her mother joined her in the spring of 1922, thus relieving the loneliness she had been feeling and boosting her spirits. Returning to the United States in the spring of 1923, Millay met Eugen Boissevain, a handsome, vigorous, Dutch-born businessman. By April, the two were married. Soon after the wedding, Boissevain drove Millay to a hospital for intestinal surgery, thus beginning a pattern of devotion that would last until his death more than twenty years later. Boissevain appreciated his wife's talent and took care of all her practical needs and arrangements. He also allowed Millay the sexual freedom she desired.

Later in 1923 Millay's The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems was published, earning for Millay that year's Pulitzer Prize for Literature. The title poem tells the story of a woman who weaves a set of princely clothes for her young son and then dies. This tale of motherly affection and sacrifice was seen as a tribute to Millay's own mother, who had given her daughters the gift of culture, despite difficult circumstances. This volume also includes Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree, in which a woman separated from her unloved husband returns to nurse him as he dies. These poems feature many strikingly realistic images of life on a New England farm.

A famous figure

In 1924 Millay went on a poetry-reading tour of the Midwest, where she was enthusiastically received by large audiences. Then she and her husband began a period of travel abroad that took them to Asia, India, and France. After their return, Boissevain bought a 700-acre (280-hectare) farm near Austerlitz, New York. This home, which they named Steepletop, would provide a welcome refuge for Millay until the end of her life.

Millay's interest in and talent for music and drama as well as poetry came together in her next project: writing the libretto (lyrics) for the opera The King's Henchman, with music by Deems Taylor (1885–1966). Performed by the Metropolitan Opera in 1927, this work received mixed reviews from the critics but was a hit with audiences.

Later in 1927 Millay's concern for social issues led to her involvement in protests arranged in support of Nicola Sacco (1891–1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888–1927). They were Italian immigrants who had been convicted of murder, on rather flimsy evidence, and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Millay was arrested for picketing a government building in Boston, Massachusetts, and made an unsuccessful plea to the state's governor to halt the execution. The Sacco and Vanzetti case inspired a poem, "Justice Denied in Massachusetts," that appeared in her next poetry collection, The Buck in the Snow and Other Poems (1928).

Millay continued to tour, impressing audiences with both her striking appearance—which featured flaming red hair, a slim figure, and elegant clothes—and her effective delivery of her poetry. Her next book, Fatal Interview (1931), contained fifty-two sonnets that chronicled a love affair from a distinctly feminine point of view. The poems were inspired by Millay's relationship with George Dillon, a young poet she had met while giving a reading at the University of Chicago. Later, Millay would collaborate with Dillon on a translation of French poet Charles Baudelaire's (1821–1867) Flowers of Evil.

Achievements and challenges

The poems collected in Wine from These Grapes (1934) show not only Millay's personal grief over her mother's death but also her concerns about global affairs. For example, in the grimly toned "Epitaph for the Race of Man," she claimed it was both a tribute and a challenge to humanity to save itself from destruction.

In 1936 Millay was writing an experimental work called Conversation at Midnight when her manuscript was lost in a hotel fire while she was vacationing in Florida. Backhome in New York, she painstakingly recreated the book from memory. These poems comprise an after-dinner conversation between seven men from very different economic and ideological backgrounds. Millay used a variety of poetic forms to convey their reflections on contemporary concerns and uncertainties.

It was during this period that, already in poor health, due partly to her heavy drinking and smoking, Millay was injured in a car accident that resulted in chronic pain and a dependence on addictive, painkilling drugs. Her next collection did not appear until 1939. Huntsman, What Quarry? included poems on lost love, death, nature, and the contrast between male and female perspectives on the world.

Long a pacifist (someone who believes that conflicts should be resolved through peaceful means, not through violence or war), Millay felt her outlook profoundly changed by the outbreak of World War II (1939–45) and the revelations of Nazi atrocities against Jews. She began writing poetry in support of the Allies' war effort (the nations, including the United States, that fought against Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan). Most critics, as well as Millay herself, in later years, consider these poems, published in Make Bright the Arrows: 1940 Notebook, pure propaganda (written to promote a particular cause) and not worthy of her talent.

In general, the 1940s were difficult for Millay. She was hospitalized in 1944 for a nervous breakdown brought on at least in part by her addiction to alcohol and drugs, and she lost several close friends (including Arthur Ficke) to death. In 1949 Boissevain died after surgery for lung cancer. Devastated, Millay insisted on returning alone to Steepletop. She spent a year there, continuing to write until her death from a heart attack in 1950.

In 1954 a final volume titled Mine the Harvest was published. It includes poems that are both sensitive and intellectual, and that affirm life while acknowledging the fact of physical decline. In a tribute to Millay that appears on the Modern American Poetry web site, Robert L. Gale summed up her appeal to her own and later generations of readers: "Millay is the poetic voice of eternal youth, feminist revolt and liberation, and potent sensitivity and suggestiveness."

For More Information

Books

Brittin, Norman A. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1982.

Epstein, Daniel. What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Henry Holt, 2001.

Freedman, Diane P. Millay at 100: A Critical Reappraisal. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995.

Gould, Jean. The Poet and Her Book: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1969.

Gurko, Miriam. Restless Spirit: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1962.

Milford, Nancy. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Random House, 2001.

Nierman, Judith. Edna St. Vincent Millay: A Reference Guide. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1977.

Web Sites

"Edna St. Vincent Millay." The Academy of American Poets. Available online at http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/160. Accessed on June 28,2005.

Gale, Robert L. "Edna St. Vincent Millay's Life." Modern America Poetry. Available online at http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/millay/millay_life.htm. Accessed on June 28, 2005.