EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY: FURTHER READING

Biography

Milford, Nancy. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay, New York: Random House, 2001, 550 p.

An account of Millay's life and times.

Criticism

Fairley, Irene R. "Edna St. Vincent Millay's Gendered Language and Form: 'Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree'." Style 29, no. 1 (spring 1995): 58-75.

Assesses Millay's sonnet sequence as a reflective expression of a woman's emerging self-knowledge.

Frank, Elizabeth Perlmutter. "A Doll's Heart: The Girl in the Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Louise Bogan." In Critical Essays on Edna St. Vincent Millay, edited by William B. Thesing, pp. 179-99. New York: G. K. Hall, 1993.

Compares the two poet's presentation of female personae and their approaches to the past traditions of lyric poetry.

Fried, Debra. "Andromeda Unbound: Gender and Genre in Millay's Sonnets." Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal 32, no. 1 (spring 1986): 1-22.

Explores Millay's sonnets and contends that she utilized the form to overcome the genre's history of silencing women's voices.

Gilmore, Susan. "'Posies of Sophistry': Impersonation and Authority in Millay's Conversation at Midnight." In Millay at 100: A Critical Reappraisal, edited by Diane P. Freedman, pp. 182-97. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995.

Analyzes Conversation at Midnight and its chorus of male speakers as Millay's attempt to expose the masculine tendency to use discursive representations of femininity.

Jones, Phyllis M. "Amatory Sonnet Sequences and the Female Perspective of Elinor Wylie and Edna St. Vincent Millay." Women's Studies 10 (1983): 41-61.

Discusses Millay's Fatal Interview and Elinor Wylie's sonnet sequence One Person, concentrating on the ways in which the poets transform traditional poetic forms to present female-oriented love poetry.

Newcomb, John Timberman. "The Woman as Political Poet: Edna St. Vincent Millay and the Mid-Century Canon." Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 37, no. 2 (spring 1995): 261-79.

Champions Millay's politically-oriented work and opposes critics John Crowe Ransom and John Ciardi, who denigrated Millay's poetry, suggesting that there was a strong sexual and aesthetic bias to their opinions.

Peppe, Holly. "Rewriting the Myth of the Woman in Love: Millay's Fatal Interview." In Millay at 100: A Critical Reappraisal, edited by Diane P. Freedman, pp. 52-65. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995.

Considers Millay's use of mythical material in Fatal Interview and asserts that the speaker of the poems is ultimately strengthened by the conclusion of her love affair.

Stanbrough, Jane. "Edna St. Vincent Millay and the Language of Vulnerability." In Shakespeare's Sisters: Feminist Essays on Women Poets, edited by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, pp. 183-89. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1979.

Argues that despite the popular conception of Millay as liberated and self-assured, her poetry repeatedly presents vulnerable female characters victimized by exterior forces.

Walker, Cheryl. "The Female Body as Icon: Edna Millay Wears a Plaid Dress." In Millay at 100: A Critical Reappraisal, edited by Diane P. Freedman, pp. 85-99. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995.

Discusses Millay as a media icon and considers her self-critique of that position in the collection Huntsman, What Quarry?

——. "Antimodern, Modern, and Postmodern Millay: Contexts and Revaluation." In Gendered Modernisms: American Women Poets and Their Readers, edited by Margaret Dickie and Thomas Travisano, pp. 170-88. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1996.

Investigates how Millay's reputation among critics has varied over time in accordance with changing literary fashions.

OTHER SOURCES FROM GALE:

Additional coverage of Millay's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: American Writers; Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography, 1917-1929; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vols. 45, 249; DISCovering Authors; DISCovering Authors: British Edition; DISCovering Authors: Canadian Edition; DISCovering Authors Modules: Most-studied Authors and Poets; DISCovering Authors 3.0; Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, Ed. 3; Exploring Poetry; Literature Resource Center; Modern American Women Writers; Poetry Criticism, Vol. 6; Poetry for Students, Vols. 3, 17; Poets: American and British; Reference Guide to American Literature, Ed. 4; Twayne's United States Authors; Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vols. 4, 49; World Literature Criticism Supplement; and World Poets.