Edna St Vincent Millay

Joel Van Valin (Independent Scholar - Europe)
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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.

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 19 March 2024.]

3115 Edna St Vincent Millay 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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