IGCSE Poetry

"Sonnet 29" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

A About the Poet — Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950)

P oet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay

was born in Rockland, Maine, on February 22,
1892. Her mother, Cora, raised her three daughters
on her own after asking her husband to leave the
family home in 1899. Cora encouraged her girls to
be ambitious and self-sufficient, teaching them an
appreciation of music and literature from an early
age. In 1912, at her mother’s urging, Millay entered
her poem “Renascence” into a contest: she won fourth place and publication in The Lyric Year,
bringing her immediate acclaim and a scholarship to Vassar College. There, she continued to
write poetry and became involved in the theater. She also developed intimate relationships
with several women while in school, including the English actress Wynne Matthison. In 1917,
the year of her graduation, Millay published her first book, Renascence and Other Poems. At the
request of Vassar’s drama department, she also wrote her first verse play, The Lamp and the Bell
(1921), a work about love between women.

After graduating from Vassar, Millay, whose friends called her “Vincent," moved to New York
City’s Greenwich Village, where she led a Bohemian life. She lived in a nine-foot-wide attic
and wrote anything she could find an editor willing to accept. She and the other writers of
Greenwich Village were, according to Millay herself, “very, very poor and very, very merry.”
She joined the Provincetown Players in its early days and befriended writers such as Witter
Bynner, Edmund Wilson, Susan Glaspell, and Floyd Dell, who asked for Millay to marry him.
Millay, who was openly bisexual, refused, despite Dell’s attempts to persuade her otherwise.
That same year Millay published A Few Figs from Thistles (1920), a volume of poetry which
drew much attention for its controversial descriptions of female sexuality and feminism. In
1923, Millay was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver. In addition to
publishing three plays in verse, Millay also wrote the libretto of one of the few American grand
operas, The King’s Henchman (1927).

Millay married Eugen Boissevain, a self-proclaimed feminist and widower of Inez Milholland,
in 1923. Boissevain gave up his own pursuits to manage Millay’s literary career, setting up the
readings and public appearances for which Millay grew quite famous. According to Millay’s
own accounts, the couple acted liked two bachelors, remaining “sexually open” throughout
their twenty-six-year marriage, which ended with Boissevain’s death in 1949. Edna St. Vincent
Millay died in 1950.
 B Before You Read — Reviewing the Sonnet Form

D o you remember what a sonnet is? Before William Shakespeare’s day, the word “sonnet”
meant simply “little song,” from the Italian "sonnetto," and the name could be applied
to any short lyric poem. In Renaissance Italy and then in Elizabethan England, the sonnet
became a fixed poetic form, consisting of 14 lines, usually iambic pentameter in English.
Different types of sonnets evolved in the different languages of the poets writing them, with
variations in rhyme scheme and metrical pattern. But all sonnets have a two-part thematic
structure, containing a problem and solution, a question and answer or a proposition and
reinterpretation within their 14 lines and a "volta," or turn, between the two parts.

Sonnet Form
The original form is the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, in which the 14 lines are arranged in
an octet (8 lines) rhyming abba abba and a sestet (6 lines) rhyming either cdecde or cdcdcd.
The English or Shakespearean sonnet came later, and it is made of three quatrains rhyming
abab cdcd efef and a closing rhymed heroic couplet. The Spenserian sonnet is a variation de-
veloped by Edmund Spenser in which the quatrains are linked by their rhyme scheme: abab
bcbc cdcd ee. Since its introduction into English in the 16th century, the 14-line sonnet form
has remained relatively stable, proving itself a flexible container for all kinds of poetry, long
enough that its images and symbols can carry detail rather than becoming cryptic or abstract,
and short enough to require a distillation of poetic thought.

The Shakespearean Sonnet

Perhaps the most well-known and important sonnets in the English language were written
by Shakespeare. The Bard is so monumental in this regard that they are called Shakespearean
sonnets.

C Texts in Context — St. Vincent Millay and the Modern Sonnet

Edna St. Vincent Millay's Sonnets

When discussing the sonnet in the 20th century, Edna St. Vincent
Millay’s name has to appear in the conversation. Not only did
Millay find value in the sonnet when other poets were vociferously
rejecting it, she also used this traditionally male-dominated poetic
form to express female sexuality. In her sonnets, Millay challenges
the role that women often occupied in poetry – that of the object
of the poet’s affection. Traditionally, after all, the readers have so far
really only been presented with one side of the story in a sonnet,
namely the one told from the male poet's perspective. Millay uses
her sonnets to give a voice to the other half of the relationship.

Millay and Modernism

Millay wrote during the artistic and literary period known as the Modern Era. Although
modernism is a vastly more complex movement than outlined here, it should at least be
mentioned that Modernists valued spontaneity, authenticity, and originality. Modernists
wanted to break with all existing past forms of artistic expression. They saw rules, conventions,
and forms as inhibiting an artist’s or writer’s creativity. The sonnet form particularly drew the
condemnation of Modern poets. Ezra Pound , one of the most influential poets of the early
20th century, said, “The Sonnet is the devil.” T.S. Eliot doubted whether poets would even
write sonnets much longer.

Enter Millay’s sonnet “I will put Chaos into fourteen lines.” Here Millay argues for the
importance of the sonnet, and really all poetic forms. The sonnet details the poet’s struggle
to wrest Chaos into Order. Chaos and Order come to metaphorically represent two parts
to artistic expression: Order becomes the structure, the means through which the poet can
communicate, while Chaos Millay sees as the artistic impulse or creativity. To have Order
without Chaos results in empty, passionless poetry; to have Chaos without order gives us
poetry that is incomprehensible. Millay’s task as a poet is take that “something simple not yet
understood” (Chaos) and hold him “till he with Order mingles and combines.” Being a poet
for Millay is negotiating between the desire to break down structures to express an original
thought and the need to be understood:

Millay and the “Free Love” movement

The Free Love movement, the idea of love not confined by marriage or even monogamy, did
not start in the 1960s, but became popular among the Bohemian culture of 1920s, especially
in Greenwich Village. You will notice, when reading Millay’s sonnets, she challenges the
traditional passive role that women are often placed in within love poetry. Millay’s “What lips
my lips have kissed, and where, and why” not only is told from a female perspective but also
presents a frank discussion of female sexuality:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

2 I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
4 Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
6 And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
8 Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
10 Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
12 I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
14 A little while, that in me sings no more.
Let’s start with the opening two lines: “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,/
I have forgotten” Already there is stark contrast to the idealized love we normally expect in
poetry. (For reference, read Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?”) The love
written about in poetry is supposed to be all-consuming, innocent, and focused on one person.
Here the speaker’s sexual liaisons have been so numerous that she has forgotten the details
of the relationships, even their names. The most radical aspect of Millay’s poem is that this
is a female voice speaking openly about having many lovers. Millay writes about her sexual
freedom in such a frank and unabashed manner – rather than conforming to the sexist double-
standard that shames women for engaging in multiple relationships, Millay writes about it
honestly.

This is not to say that the sonnet is free of regret. The speaker in the sonnet is later in years. At
line 9 (again the volta), Millay offers the image of the “lonely tree” in winter, whose boughs,
now empty, were once crowded with birds. The sonnet’s tone is nostalgic, looking back to a
time when “summer sang in” her ” a little while.” Interestingly, the root of “nostalgia” is Greek
for a type of pain. The speaker of the sonnet experiences this pain when hearing the rain on
the window and then being reminded of “unremembered lads that not again/ Will turn to me
at midnight with a cry” ( 7-8). Older women are pretty much absent from sonnets, and yet
here Millay’s speaker is a woman looking back on her youth.

D "Sonnet 29" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Pity me not because the light of day assail: to attack violently;

2At the close of day no longer walks the sky; (of an unpleasant feeling or
Pity me not for beauties passed away physical sensation) come
upon (someone) suddenly
4 From field to thicket as the year goes by;
and strongly.
Pity me not the waning moon,
6 Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea, gale: a very strong wind.

Nor that a man’s desire is hushed so soon, behold: [archaic, literary]

8 And you no longer look with love on me. see or observe (someone
This I have known always: Love is no more or something, especially of
remarkable or impressive
10 Than the wide blossom which with the wind assails,
nature).
Than the great tide that tread the shifting shore,
12 Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales:
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
14 When the swift mind beholds at every turn.
 E Graphic Organizer for Analyzing "Sonnet 43" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
What do you think the
What were the key words What sounds of the
author is saying? What What is the attitude Do these lines contain
and phrases that helped words contribute to the
is the meaning (or mul- or tone of the poetic figurative language or
you to uncover the meaning? (repetition,
tiple meanings) of these speaker in these lines? connotative language?
meaning? alliteration, assonance)
lines?
Pity me not because the
light of day
At the close of day no longer
walks the sky
Pity me not for beauties
passed away
From field to thicket as the
year goes by;
Pity me not the waning
moon,
Nor that the ebbing tide goes
out to sea,
Nor that a man’s desire is
hushed so soon,
And you no longer look
with love on me.
This I have known always:
Love is no more
Than the wide blossom
which with the wind assails,
Than the great tide that
tread the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage
gathered in the gales:
Pity me that the heart is
slow to learn
When the swift mind be-
holds at every turn.
 F Food for Thought — Essay Questions

Write a detailed response to one of the following questions:

1) Discuss how Edna St. Vincent Millay portrays her feelings in “Sonnet 29” using form,
imagery and figurative language.

2) How does Edna St. Vincent Millay fuse content and form in "Sonnet 29", and how does this
fusion reinforce the overall purpose and message of the poem?

3) Compare and contrast the poetic representation of love and relationships in "Sonnet 29" by
Edna St. Vincent Millay and "How do I Love Thee?", Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

4) Compare and contrast Edna St. Vincent Millay and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the
similarities in their attitudes towards love and men.