Edna St. Vincent Millay Research Paper

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s life was limited to fifty-eight short years, but she clearly made a substantial impact in the literary world expressing lifestyle choices for women indicative of the societal changes precipitated during the Progressive Era. Millay and her two sisters were raised primarily by a divorced mother who was often forced to leave the girls alone as she traveled as a nurse. The marriage of Millay’s parents was destroyed by the financial recklessness of her father and it is likely that this severed relationship had a significant impact on Edna’s beliefs and opinions. This limited fundamental nurturing translated into young women who were independent, intelligent, and strong-willed, eager to dispense their opinion whether
She sharply admonishes females who criticize her wild and passionate flings, choosing instead to honor the traditional rules of their maternal role models who are ‘long necks Of neighbours sitting where their mothers sat” (5-6). Millay is proud of the critically acclaimed work she accomplishes during the day within the boundaries of “the lofty tower [she] labour[s] at,” but she is clearly unashamed of the sordid affairs in which she engages in the evening (3). The author readily accepts full responsibility for both her accomplishments and her transgressions acknowledging, “To what it is, this tower; it is my own” (10). She reprimands her critics who condemn her insatiable sexual appetite responding that those encounters are the stimulants which create the passion for her poetry. While her contemporaries may offer a more sterile, less scandalous alternative to her work, Millay’s poetry is the result of her personal experiences of “anguish; pride; and burning thought; And lust is there, and nights not spent alone”