Edna St. Vincent Millay's Renascence

The ending of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is both controversial and thought provoking. Many see Edna Pontellier’s suicide as the final stage of her “awakening”, and the only way that she will ever be able to truly be free. Edna’s suicide, however, is nothing more than her final attempt to escape from her life. Edna Pontellier’s life has become too much for her to handle, and by committing suicide she is simply escaping the oppression she feels from her marriage, the suppression she feels from her children, and the failure of her relationship with Robert.

            One of the main aspects of the feminist movement is breaking away from society’s limits and expectations. Before Edna could break free, she first had to experience an awakening. In her awakening, she had to realize the role of women in the universe, the role that society created for women, “…beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being…” (Chopin 17).

In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, two people who have the ultimate influence on Edna are Mademoiselle Reisz, and Robert Lebrun.

Millay uses personification in the sonnet to turn the figurative idea of chaos into a character that she is able to control and tame. In the first line of the sonnet, the speaker asserts “I will put Chaos into fourteen lines” (Millay 1), giving this non-human, abstract idea human-like characteristics. By turning chaos into Chaos, Millay effectively shifts Chaos into a human-like character. The speaker of the poem showcases their ability to use language as a power to confine this personified Chaos, to the strict form of the sonnet. In the second line, the speaker addresses Chaos as a “him”

Another element of this story is emotion. Emotion is described as a strong feeling of any kind. This story possessed a lot of emotion, ranging from Don’s see-saw feelings of Eden, to Eden’s feelings of being successful. Don’s emotions throughout this story was kind of rocky, as to how he felt about Eden.

A great poet makes the reader feel connected and inside the poem. Shakespeare, Frost, and Angelou all encompass the great qualities of a wonderful writer, because readers are taken on a trip. Much like the Shakespeare, Natasha Trethewey, used “experience” to write poems that take readers on an adventure through the lives of 1912 New Orleans prostitutes. She gives these women identities. These normally shunned women were given families, backstories, and most importantly, emotions. She took what people consider the scum of society and turned them into normal women, who have doubts and insecurities. She manages to make women these women human. In this specific collection of poems, the focus is on Ophelia, a young woman who has to deal with a father

After first reading Edna St. Vincent Millay’s lyric poem, “If I Should Learn, in Some Quite Casual Way,” one may be taken aback by just how unconcerned the speaker, possibly Millay herself, seems to be with this scenario. Only after going back through the poem a time or two can one understand what Millay truly means. Figures of speech are methodically placed to give the impression that not much effort went into this mere thought.

In Wordsworth’s sonnet, he uses only the four rhymes to show that, even in constraining himself, he is still free. He may be confined to a cell or a rhyme scheme, but it is in such confinements that he finds liberty. Millay, too, is playing off of this idea – simply by being a woman she is confined by society, but through her poetry she can recognized for the brilliant writer she is; hence, she quite literally frees her poetic reputation by constraining herself to such strict bounds. The irony in this reference to Wordsworth’s work, however, is the contrasting subject matters – he writes of metaphorical nuns, while she writes of rejection and lovers.

Millay throughout her poem utilizes symbolism which sets the tone of loneliness and nostalgia, making it easier for the reader to grasp the meaning of the poem. The first two lines of the poem, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, / I have forgotten, and what arms have lain” (Millay 1-2) the speaker explains in a subtle way about her former lovers she has now forgotten. “Under my head till morning; but the rain/ Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh/ Upon the glass and listen for reply,” (Millay 3-5) the speaker uses symbolism on her former lovers as ghosts that are tapping and can be interpreted as them prompting her memories. “And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain/ For unremembered lads that not

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Sonnet IV” follows many of the conventions of the traditional Petrarchan sonnet. It follows the traditional rhyming scheme and octet, sestet structure. However it challenges the conventions of the typical subject of the Italian sonnet, unrequited love. In the octet at the beginning of the poem Millay uses images that give a sense of transience and in the ending sestet of the sonnet she contrasts the sense of impermanence given earlier with the idea that the speaker cannot forget the smiles and words of their ex-lover. This contrast between permanence and transience illustrates Millay’s interest in a fugacious relationship with everlasting memories. After further analysis of Millay’s highly structured rhyming scheme which puts emphasis on the last words of each line. She uses these words to further express her interest in exploring impermanent relationships by using words that are associated with an end or death.

Come, you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here./ And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;/ Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature/ Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between/ The effect and it! come to my woman's breasts,/ And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,/ Whatever in your sightless substances/ You wait on nature's mischief! Come think night,/ And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,/ That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,/ Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,/ To cry 'Hold, hold!' (Shakespeare I, v, 36)

Her career that spanned three decades and her work that ranges from lyrics to verse play and political commentary. Edna St. Vincent Millay is mostly known for her earlier works, such as "Renascence", Few Figs Thistles, and Second April. Millay wrote about things such as mystical views on the universe, god, death, celebration of feminism, and free love. It's almost as if she was a writer from today and with that, I believe that she would be comfortable with today's free America.

The speaker’s confession points to how the speaker understands why others may fall victim to desire as well, offering a hint of solidarity. But overall, the speaker advises those tempted to avoid desire by explaining the “price” he had to pay for submitting to it. The speaker describes the toll by recalling how he gained a “mangled mind” and “worthless ware,” and uses alliteration to accentuate how he had partook in desire in the past. The speaker mentions the ills that he has accumulated in hopes of waking those who are “asleep” and oblivious to the dangers of desire, like he once

Walter Lippmann’s, “Miss Lowell and Things,” a critique of Amy Lowell’s “The ‘New Manner’ in Modern Poetry,” challenges the way Lowell defines modern poetry and the surging imagist trend in poetry. Lippman criticizes Lowell’s outlook on poetry, arguing there is always an emotional response and the concept of externality is not a major aspect of modern poetry. While Lowell defines externality as “the attitude of being interested in things for themselves and not because of the effect they have upon oneself” (The ‘New Manner’ in Poetry 35), Lippman struggles to understand how emotion and feelings could not be present in poetry. Lippman suggests that poetry without true meaning and emotion loses its purpose, and becomes

Veering from the egocentric poems of the Romantic era, Victorian poets began to write poetry not only to express the feelings of an “I,” but also to inspire change in the collective “we.” Being from a historical period with a dramatic class divide, Victorian poets wrote with the intention of crafting beautiful lasting poetry as well as articulating a need for cultural reform in their now. One of the most renowned Victorian poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning possessed the expert skill of integrating not only imagery and precise rhyme scheme into her poetry, but afflicting her readers with a sense of pity so paramount they had no choice but to make a change.