My candle burns at both ends

Over a family dinner the other night, I mentioned my studies in Millay. My uncle, well-schooled in the humanities, quoted her famous lines "My candle burns at both ends;/ It will not last the night." This epigram, "First Fig," was familiar to everyone at the table, though they knew little else about the poet. Why does this silly, flirty poem outlast her others and even her name? The shock factor? Is it really that shocking?

A Few Figs from Thistles, published in 1920, opens with "First Fig." Perhaps this poem embodies the rowdy life style we all associate with the 20's. No - of course it does. But I don't think it should embody the quintessential Millay. In fact, according to the Wikipedia article about her, Millay's most remembered poems are "Renascence," "The Ballad of the Harp Weaver," and (as I've already mentioned), "First Fig." In my opinion, none of these poems really represent Millay's writing, which I think is best in her sonnets.

Is it true, then, that Millay is remembered for what she was rather than what she wrote? And if it is, would it have been what she wanted? I know this much: when she comes up in conversation, people talk about her vivacious lifestyle and her red hair, not her unrivaled mastery of rhyme and form.

Blog Guilt

My independent study has strayed away from Millay and more toward creative writing, but I am feeling blog guilt for not updating this more frequently.

For my birthday, my sister gave me a signed, first edition copy of Huntsman, What Quarry? A library archive copy, the book is in wonderful condition, with its pages uncut at the top (meaning it has never been read before!) How moving it is to hold something in my hands which Millay herself once held and signed...

"Millay at Steepletop"

Last night I watched "Millay at Steepletop," a 1968 film by Kevin Brownlow which I had expected to be a brief biography of Millay with images of her home at Steepletop. The movie, however, is mostly scenes of Edna's elderly sister, Norma, running around the estate like a madwoman. While there is some biographically information and a few clips of Millay and her husband, it turned out to be a film more about Norma than her sister. Furthermore, it has a certain low-budget-horror-film quality, with scenes of winding country roads and Norma chopping wood in a fire-lit basement. At one point, the movie flashes to a scene of Norma brushing the bright red hair of a doll and the narrator reveals that it is Edna's hair. I screamed! Although the film has no real biographical value, it serves as an interesting (and frightening) view of Norma, as well as including some great footage of Edna St. Vincent Millay feeding chickadees and sparrows.

The Harp Weaver and Other Poems

Last week I had an encouraging meeting with Professor Emerson. She came across an interesting fact while looking through an old edition of Millay's Collected Poems. The old edition, which has all of Millay's published work, lacks "Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree," a series in The Harp Weaver and Other Poems, her Pulitzer-winning book. My newer edition, however, has this poem in it. What is the cause of the exclusion of the sonnets? Emerson thinks that the series, which is clearly autobiographically based, might reflect badly on the Millay family and that Norma Millay, Edna's sister, left it out when she compiled the early edition of the collected works. I assumed at first that this must be fairly well known and that finding information about the poems' exclusion would be easy. Strangely, though (and maybe I'm just looking in all the wrong places), I can't seem to find anything!

Renascence and Other Poems

Reading this book, I just keep coming back to "Interim." I think the poem might be my favorite of the bunch. Millay builds the tension up so flawlessly that it creates a monologue of madness, starting almost calmly composed (You are not here. I know that you are gone, /And will not ever enter here again) and ending in hysteria (O God, I see it now, and my sick brain /Staggers and swoons!) A friend argued that the poem is not consistently good and that some lines and sections are stronger than others and although I agree to some extent, I think the overall affect is magnificent. The poem raises all sorts of questions from me. Most of all, I wonder who it is about. At the beginning, the subject of the poem seems innocent and perhaps young (You were so small,/And wrote so brave a hand!) But then it seems that this person is a lover, or at least someone whom Millay would have liked to have as a lover. The subject also seems to have feminine qualities (i.e. the garden, the smallness):

I recall
With terrible distinctness how the smell
Of your cool gardens drifted in with you.
I know, you held it up for me to see
And flushed because I looked not at the flower,
But at your face; and when behind my look
You saw such unmistakable intent
You laughed and brushed your flower against my lips.


So many of the poems in Renascence employ loss as a theme that the few joyful poems ("Afternoon on a Hill," "Sonnet I," etc.) stick out to me. I wonder if the collection is biographical of certain losses which Millay has undergone, or if she is making statements about loss in general. She was only 25 when this book was published, and imagining these deep losses at such a young age is heartbreaking.

Renascence

The first few days of my study, I've felt a little overwhelmed. Because Millay was so prolific, I've been struggling to decide where to begin. Instead of diving into her work, I've been tiptoeing around the edges, reading arbitrarily from her 700-some page Collected Poems. In reading Millay's work, I'm interested in looking at her popularity as a writer. While she was well-liked during her day, she has lost this enthusiasm from today's mainstream audience. It was Professor Emerson's idea that I look at the qualities of Millay's work that might make her unappealing to a modern reader. Because this is the focus I have chosen to take, I've decided that a methodical approach for me to take will be to read Millay's first book (Renascence), her most acclaimed book (The Harp-Weaver, and Other Poems, which one the Pulitzer Prize), and her last book (Murder of Lidice). After reading these, I will delve into her further works.

First Post

I just set up this blog account, which hopefully I'll be using to track my independent study on the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. While reading Millay's poems, plays, and biographies, I will also write poetry of my own inspired by her work.