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Edna St. Vincent Millay Short Story

1001 Words5 Pages

The Story of Edna St. Vincent Millay Through life stories, the humanity of every person is brought to life. The life story of Millay is no exception. Her works are astounding and continue to stand the test of time as she was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer prize, which she was awarded in 1923 for her poem titled, “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver,” and became the second woman to receive the Frost Medal for her lifetime contribution to American Poetry. However, the details of her life are just like many other stories of children growing up in America in the 1920s, a life marked by confusion as time began to change and human rights, women’s rights, gay rights were all beginning to progress, divorce was heightening, and education was …show more content…

Due to this dedication to the arts, upon the year of her graduation from Vassar University, she published her very first book, Renascence and Other Poems and in 1921 she wrote her first verse play about two women called, The Lamp and Bell. This verse play brought about a lot of controversy about female sexuality and feminism in that time period and helped to spiral Millay into writing pieces about things, people, beliefs, events, and world stances that she truly cared about. For example, from 1920 to 1923, Millay spent her time in Europe and began to see the effects of World Wars and began to write about the effects of war, writing a script for an opera titled, “The King’s Henchman” which made her a great deal of money and allowed for her to live comfortably until her death. In addition, while she was in Europe she published a few plays on war and feminism as well as her most famous work, The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems in 1923. With all of these works behind her, Millay became more and more of an advocate for women’s rights and gay rights in her later years. She also was very against the Nazi regiment in Europe and began to write many plays and pieces in protest against their racism and religious bigotry. In fact, she was so against racism that in 1927 she joined a protest against the execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were Italian immigrants and anarchists, who were executed for murder by the state of Massachusetts in 1927 on very little evidence. As a result, many observers worldwide, including Millay, believed that these two were convicted based upon their political beliefs and social backgrounds (Encyclopedia.com) which grieved Millay until no end. She was arrested for being apart of the protest against their arrest and sentence, which caused her to

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