Analyzing Edna St. Vincent Millay's 'Day Month 2023'

Madeline Lantz

Ms. Aiken

Honors English IV Block 1

Day Month 2023 (Due date)

Poetry Explication: Ugliest Version Life without death is like a dirge without music. Useless. Something so dark and sad, but just as essential as air is to breathe. However, despite its necessity, it does not stop death from being a contraversal term, especially to those who must deal with it. For some, death is just a part of life, a means to an end. For others, death is something more, something unjust. In the poem, “Dirge without music,” the author, Edna St. Vincent Millay, uses poetic elements to convey the narroratores feelings on the acceptance of death. Three big poetic elements that the author uses are contrasting words, imagry, and repitition. The elements

Millay does this by describing death as dark, cold, and hard, while emphasizing the greatness of the person who died. Even from the very start of the poem, from line one, the reader is able to see the author's usage. The first line says, “shutting away of loving hearts into the hard ground,” by placing the words “loving hearts'' in the middle of harsher words like shutting away and hard ground, the author not only highlights her dislike for death but also gives the reason why (Millay 1). This element is used again in lines five and six. In line five the author says, “lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you,” this is the author romanticizing the one who died, and is then followed up by, “be one with the dull, the indiscrimminate dust,” (Millay 5-6). The author's usage of the words “dull” and “indiscriminate dust” create a clear contrast between the two lines, making the idea of death and burying loved ones, almost inhumane (Millay 6). This is further seen in the author’s usage of

These three poetic elements, contrasting words, imagry, and repitition, are utilized to showcase the vast, contrasting ways death can be percieved by those who encounter it. As well as, the way the author and narrator of this poem views this particular concept, that being their bregrudged acceptance of it. Millay uses contrasting words to emphasize the narrator’s dislike for death. Imagry was used to acknowledge the “beauty” of death, that people say as a way to ease the pain. This acknowledgement is needed for when the author uses repetition to contrast these statements. The idea of death can be a hard pill to swallow but, despite this, one must, “not be resigned,” to the idea of it, for life without death is like a dirge without