Edna St Vincent Millay

Joel Van Valin (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 22 Feb 1892
Died 19 Oct 1950
Activity 1912-1950

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States; France

Activities

Primary

Librettist
Playwright / Dramatist
Poet
Satirist
Translator

Resources

Millay's Works

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Although her successors were few and her innovations minor, Edna St. Vincent Millay remains a candescent figure in 20th century American literature. If F. Scott Fitzgerald was the fictional voice of the Lost Generation , she was its poetic spokesperson. A well-known personality in Greenwich Village, Millay was legendary for her Byronic attitude and casual affairs. Heightened by music and irreverent wit, her poetry contains complex, intuitive meter and rhyme variations, and she was considered by some contemporaries to be among America’s greatest lyric poets.

Born in 1892 in Rockport Maine, her parents separated when she was eight. Cora Millay moved her daughters Edna (the eldest), Norma and Kathleen to several locales in New England, finally settling on the coast of Maine in Camden.

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1020 words

Citation: Van Valin, Joel. "Edna St Vincent Millay". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 November 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3115, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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