subvert such traditionally masculine forms as the sonnet for her own p - PDF document

subvert such traditionally masculine forms as the sonnet for her own purposes. Rather than asking why Millay, as a modern woman, chose to use the traditional and masculine form of the sonnet, Fried claims that critics Òhave tended to assume that we know just how and why a poet like Millay must use circumscribed, traditional poetic forms: to rein in her strong, unruly feelingsÓ (Fried 229). She takes issue with StanbroughÕs assertion that such reining in is a feminine approach to poetry: Òwhat poetic Ôsensibility,Õ we may ask, is not in some degree suited to the strictures of poetic form?Ó (Fried 230). Fried constructs MillayÕs use of sonnet, rather, as a claiming of a form traditionally denied to women; in an analysis of WordsworthÕs ÒNuns Fret Not At Their ConventÕs Narrow Room,Ó she finds that the masculine Romantic view of the sonnet is one of escape from Òthe weight of too much libertyÓ in life and in creative expression. This escape is not one shared by women, who Òconfined by their sex in a scanty plotÉcannot enjoy quite this brand of Wordsworthian solace in putting on the corset of strict lyric form.Ó The excess of liberty is the liberty to write great epic works; a liberty the female poet is denied. ÒThe woman may be his [the bardÕs] muse, but she can never follow him up the graded ladder of poetic modesÓ (Fried 233-234). Fried then connects poetic freedom with sexual freedom, another liberty traditionally afforded to men but denied to women, and compares the sonnet to MillayÕs famous assertion that Ò[her] candle burns at both ends.Ó The sonnet uses itself up, neatly And saw three islands in a bay. É Over these things I could not see These were the things that bounded me. MillayÕs feelings had been for the girl, Coleman was among her admirers and her diaries Ò Õs eighteen lines diminish on the page until the seventeenth line is only one word long, echoing the deepening despair of the poem as MillayÕs speaker retreats ever further away from the outside world. Millay begins by directly addressing the month: ÒTo what purpose, April, do you return again?Ó (ÒSpringÓ line 1) The classic apostrophe to spring and the formality of the question, serve to contrast and temper its rudeness, as the question is essentially Òwhat the hell are you doing here?Ó This first line alerts us that something is not right in Millay this line; ÒÉno beauty, whether it results from the nature of spring itself or from the formal aesthetics of poetry,Ó can ease whatever pain she is in (Kaiser 30). She continues to berate the spring month, declaring that it cannot ÒquietÓ her anymore. The word ÒquietÓ here suggests an image of a parent mollifying a child with a distraction rather than direct comfort, but April is not bribing Millay with candy, but with Òthe redness of little leaves opening stickilyÓ (3-4). The words ÒlittleÓ and ÒstickilyÓ seem innocent and childlike in their simplicity, and the sticky leaves are reminiscent of sticky candies, or the small sticky hands of young children. This beautiful line is a momentary distraction, like sticky candies, The fourth stanza reveals the true subject of the poem, and the reason for the lightness: the poem is not about physical death, but the metaphorical death of a love affair. ÒCoolly, cleverly, [Millay] slays with a Catullan sleight of hand her own na in 1921 and The Buck in the Snow in 1928, Millay spent time in Europe, published The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems, became the first woman to win the , she said to her good friend Arthur Ficke ÒIf I die now, I shall be immortalÓ (Milford 254-255). She survived the surgery, but MillayÕs awareness of her own mortality grows more evident in The Buck in the Snow; as Untermeyer put it, Ònever has Miss Millay plucked so insistently on the autumnal stringÓ (ÒSongÓ 57). The image of triumphal self-death most common in her earlier earth with you,Ó but the description of the dying as Òlovers and thinkers,Ó such importantly human attributes, refutes this flippancy. in your eyes than all the roses in the world.Ó The next stanza begins with the marching repetition of Òdown, down, down into the darkness of the grave,Ó then names the marchers as Òthe beautiful, the tender, the kindÉthe intelligent, the witty, the brave,Ó all admirable attributes Millay often praises. She then cuts this list short with another repetition of ÒI know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.Ó The time between The Buck in the Snow and her final posthumous collections marked a dark time in MillayÕs life. In 1930, her beloved mother died. She lost the entire manuscript of her play Conversation at Midnight in a hotel fire in 1936, and severely taxed her energy in re-writing it from memory. Before and during World War II, her writing descended into propaganda, first bemoaning mankindÕs attraction to violence in Huntsman, What Quarry? and then urging the US to avenge wrongs done in Europe in Òprincely gift,Ó like the love and forgiveness the beloved gave to her. ÒThe most I ever did for you was to outlive you,Ó she claims, acknowledging that she could have done more, yet she claims that, even so, her gift Òis much.Ó It was the last and best thing she could have given, the only thing staving off the black despair over the loss of MillayÕs most constant love. The theme of death can be easily traced throughout MillayÕs work, from the earliest instances of horror and longing in Bloom, Harold. "Series Introduction by Harold Bloom: Themes and Metaphors." Bloom's Literary Themes: Death and Dying. Ed. Blake Hobby. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009. Brittin, Norman A. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982. Clark, Suzanne. "Uncanny Millay." Millay at 100: A Critical Reappraisal. Ed. Diane P. Freedman. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995. Epstein, Daniel Mark. What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: the Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001. Frank, Elizabeth P. ÒA Doll's Heart: The Girl in the Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Louise Bogan.Ó Twentieth Century Literature 23.2 (1977): 157-179. Fried, Debra. ÒAndromeda Unbound: Gender and Genre in Millay's Sonnets. Munson, Gorham. ÒParnassus on Penobscot.Ó The New England Quarterly. 41.2 (1968): 264-273 Orel, Harold. ÒTarnished Arrows: The Last Phase of Edna St. Vincent Millay.Ó Kansas Magazine (1960): 73-78. Parks, Edd Winfield. ÒReview: Miss Millay in Transition.Ó The Sewanee Review. 37.1 (1929):120-121