Edna St. Vincent Millay
"I think my feelings right now could be summarized from a quote from the made for TV movie: The House Without a Christmas Tree..." ("Mary Catherine Gallagher Christmas"). Just as Mary Katherine Gallagher, a character from the popular television show Saturday Night Live, has mastered expressing her feelings through words, so has the famous poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her expert skill over the words of the English language was far superior to most others'. It was this dominance that led Edna St. Vincent Millay to be so excellent at conveying her thoughts, feelings, and beliefs through the medium of language. As a result, she was very influential not only to her readers, but also to writers. Overall, Millay's poetry had a huge effect on so many people and groups solely because of her ability to control, with simplicity, the messages she gave when she wrote. In the New York Times Book Review on March 15, 1992, Liz Rosenberg commented on a new compilation of old Millay poems. In general, Rosenberg seemed to enjoy most of Millay's works. She found that there are beliefs of feminism, anti-fascism, and social justice scattered all across the stanzas. This article also communicates to the reader that the simplicity of Millay
One of Millay's last books was Mine the Harvest. This book was not published until after her death. Contained within the poems of this collection are several links to feelings of death and dying. In the poem "Not for a Nation" the underlying theme is of death. Lines like "Will I give up my life?" (5) and others reflect a sadness to the readers. This whole poem is about solitude, isolation, and being alone. "For Warmth Alone" gives a small amount of relief to the reader. In a book filled with so much grief, the reader finally arrives at a little bit of warmth in this piece. "For Warmth Alone" talks of repenting for sins, bringing happiness from sadness, and changing life for the better. "Warmed a little but far from warm" (3) and other lines like it give the reader a sense of relief in a book otherwise filled with anger and sadness. To sum up, Millay's collection of works, Mine the Harvest, expresses her feelings of anger and sadness around the time of her death and has set an example to writers today as to how to write about their own personal feelings of despair. 's works is beautiful. She also comments that Millay is able to express an important thought or belief in a brief poetic line. This furthers the idea of Millay being able to use words so effectively. Millay's "...sense of natural speech..." (3) in her works also clarifies her mastery of the use of vocabulary. This New York Times article suggests that Millay is able to give ideas to the reader in such a straightforward style. This way the reader is not overwhelmed by the superfluous and the point comes across simply. When Edna St. Vincent Millay published her first book, Renascence, and Other Poems, in 1917, she was young and new to the writing community. Her poetry "was praised for its freshness and vitality." ("Edna St. Vincent Millay" 864). But as she grew older, she gained critics. By the time one of her
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Approximate Word count = 1284
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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