Edna St. Vincent Millay :: essays research papers

Edna St. Vincent Millay, a poet and playwrite, was best known for her lyrical poetry. She wrote more poems, on topics such as love, fidelity, erotic desire, and feminist issues. The part of Millay that wasnt highly publicized is that she addressed herself as a bi knowledgeable and had many affairs with woman before her marriage. It is not said if she continued sexual involments with women after her marriage (though it is quite possible), nor it is not said which of her poems are compose about women rather than men.Edna St. Vincent Millay grew up in a different sift of family. Born February 22, 1892 in Rockland, Maine, and the oldest of three daughters of Henry Tolman Millay and Cora Lounella (Buzelle) Millay. When Edna was around the age cardinal her mother divorced her father. After the divorce her mother worked as a nurse to support the family. Her mother encouraged Edna and her sisters to study music and writings and urged them to be independent and ambitious. Ednas first pu blished poem & vitamin AquotForest Trees.& ampquot Written when she was fourteen, appeared in St. Nicholas Magazine (October 1906). With in the nigh four years, St. Nicholas published five more of her poems superstar of which, &quotThe shore up of Romance&quot received a gold badge of the St. Nicholas group discussion and later was reprinted in Current Literature (April 1907). In 1912 &quot metempsychosis&quot one of Millays poems was anthologized in The Lyric Year and met with critical acclaim. When Millays poems were published she gained literary recognition and earned a scholarship to Vassar. At Vassar she continued to write poetry and became involved in the theater. In 1922 one of her plays The Harp Weaver was awarded the Palitzer Prize. Millay also published a book of poems in 1922 called &quotA Few Figs from Thistles&quot in this volume, she described young-bearing(prenominal) sexuality in a way that gained her much attention, as she stick fourth the ide a that a women has every right to sexual recreation and no obligation to fidelity.Following her successes in the 1920s and early 1930s, Millays poetry gradually suffered a critical and popular decline. Unfortunately, her real poetic achievements were overshadowed by her image as the free (but &quotnaughty&quot) woman of the 1920s. During the last two decades of her life, millay was almost ignored critically, although her Collected Sonnets appeared in 1941. Since the late 1960s, however, there has been a renewed interest in Millays works.