Edna St Vincent Millays Poetry Flashcards
What is Millays ‘Time does not bring relief you all have lied’ centred around?
‘Time does not bring relief; you all have lied’ is centred around an emotionally damaged woman, seeking relief from heartbreak.
In this piece, Millay uses the second half of the poem to outline why her speaker’s emotions have made it hard for her to function in the world. The heartbroken speaker does her best to find a place where she can get some relief. This proves to be impossible though as the memories of her ex-lover are everywhere. They are more attached to her own being than they are to a physical location.
How is ‘Time does not bring relief you all have lied’ structured?
The poem is structured in the common form of a Petrarchan sonnet + iambic pentameter.
The poem begins with this speaker chastising her listeners for lying to her. They told her that any pain she feels, on account of a lost lover, would fade away in time. She is angry because this has not come close to happening. One can assume that a great deal of time has passed, and the speaker’s emotions are just as strong as they were when the hurt was fresh.
The speaker is aware that time is passing around her, but it doesn’t touch her inner world. The snow might be melting on the mountains and the leaves being turned into smoke on the road, but she is the same as always.
The final lines describe how these emotions have impacted her. Now, no matter where she goes, even if its somewhere he never was, she is “stricken” with thoughts of him. He haunts her heart and mind, in every setting and situation.
What is Milays Recuerdo centred around?
Recuerdo’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay relays the memories of a speaker recalling a night she spent sailing back and forth on a ferry, eating fruit, and watching the sky.
The speaker’s ability to remember what happened to her when she was “very tired” and “merry” becomes all the more important when one considers the title. ‘Recuerdo’ means “I remember” as well as referring to “a memory” in Spanish. As with all memories, it is often uncertain how dependable they are.
How is Millays Recuerdo structured?
The first two lines of every stanza act as a refrain. They restate the emotions and settings associated with the speaker’s memories.
The repetitive nature of the phrases mirrors their consistent structure. The two lines contain six sets of trochees or pairs of syllables, the first of which is stressed and the second unstressed.
After these two lines, there is no discernible metrical pattern in the rest of the text. This places an even great emphasis on the lines - the descriptions are emotive language becomes more prevalent.
State the key poetic devices Millay utilises in Recuedrdo
- Anaphora
- Repetition
What is Millays ‘Wild Swans’ centred around?
Wild Swans’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay tells of a speaker’s desperation to get out of her current physical and emotional space and find a new, bird-like freedom.
The most pivotal image in this piece is that of the wild swans. They appear throughout the text, from the beginning to the end. It is the sight of the swans in the first line of the poem that inspires the speaker’s emotional confession.
They represent the ultimate freedom. She desires the ability to migrate, move, or travel as she pleases. The swans have an inherent freedom embodied in their movements that especially strikes the speaker on this day. Throughout the following lines, the birds are connected to living, dying, and air.
By the end of the poem, she is calling to them, asking them to fly over town once more. But they are continuing on their way with no regard for the past. If she wants to join them, she is going to have to commit herself to change which is limitation for human beings.
How is Millays ‘Wild Swans’ structured?
The poem begins with the speaker feeling shocked at the sight of wild swans flying over her home. There is something about their shapes on this day that strikes her.
She is suddenly determined to look into her heart and pick out the parts of herself that have confined. The first-person perspective,makes the poem is deeply personal. The speaker exposes her true inner self, part of her being that she, until this moment, had not fully addressed.
State the key poetic devices Millay utilises in ‘Wild Swans’
- Repetition
- Personification
What is Millays ‘The Fawn’ centred around?
‘The Fawn’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay tells of an encounter between a deer and a speaker who wants nothing more than to be accepted by the forest.
How is Millays ‘The Fawn’ structured?
The poem begins with the speaker vaguely describing an encounter she had with a deer. The importance of the memory is clear from the beginning. It is something she oesn’t expect to ever happen again and this gives the tone a distinct sadness.
In the next lines, she describes what it was like to come upon the deer. She was surprised to see him there, by himself in the moss. His mother was not around and she wondered why this is the case.
In the last two stanzas, the speaker conveys her desire to be accepted by the deer and allowed to exist alongside him. She doesn’t want to be loved, she just wants to be a part of the ecosystem.
The poem concludes with a long question. The deer suddenly becomes alarmed and runs from the speaker. She is bothered by this turn of events because she can’t figure out what she did wrong.Arguably the deer can be symbolic of lots of different individuals + aspects in our lives.
State the key poetic devices Millay utilises in ‘The Fawn’
- Enjambement
- Repetition
- Anaphora
