About Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American poet and playwright, and the third woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She was also particularly known for her unconventional and bohemian lifestyle and her many love affairs. Anxious to preserve her notoriety as a poet, she used on numerous occasions the pseudonym Nancy Boyd to publish all her other works, especially her early prose writings. During her adolescence, and at Camden High School, Millay began to develop her poetry and literary talents. She first contributed to the school's literary magazine, “The Megunticook”, and at the age of fifteen, she published some of her poems in the popular children's magazine “St. Nicholas”, the “Camden Herald”, and—most significantly—in the anthology “Current Literature”. Millay's fame began in 1912, in her nineteenth year, when, encouraged by her mother, she wrote her poem Renascence for a poetry competition of the lyrical year. She achieved true recognition with this poem, the publication and literary merit of which earned her a scholarship to Vassar College. After graduating in 1917, she moved to New York City, where she had a free life in the artist society of Greenwich village and takes feminist positions. She married in 1923 with Eugen Jan Boissevain and lived with him in a house called Steepletop in Austerlitz.Millay wrote poetry, novels, anti-militarist and feminist articles, plays, and even an opera libretto. In 1923, she lived in Greenwich Village. It was during this time that Millay first gained widespread popularity in America. She received the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry collections “The Harp-Weaver” and the collection “Renascence and Other Poems” published in 1917, and which is considered one of her most famous works. In 1929, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Browse all poems and texts published on Edna St. Vincent Millay
Thomas Hardy once said that America had two great attractions: its skyscrapers and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay.
