Thou Art Not Lovelier Than Lilacs

“Thou Art Not Lovelier Than Lilacs”

Born in Rockland, Maine in 1892, Edna St. Vincent Millay was one of three sisters, and had been gifted with the talent to write. When growing up she was an avid reader of St. Nicholas magazine, and it was through that magazine that Millay first found her welcome as a poet (Perkins, 708). At the age of nineteen, Millay had written what is considered her first major poem, “Renascence.” It was this piece of writing that won her a scholarship to Vassar College, and it was there that Millay refined her natural skills and provided her with a significant source of culture and scholarly wisdom, including much of the feminist and political sensibilities that surfaced in her later work (Napierkowski, 79). In 1917, the year Millay graduated from Vassar, her first book, Renascence and Other Poems was published. Upon graduation she packed up her things and went to Greenwich Village, New York (Perkins, 708). This area was noted as a haven for people of artistic skills as well as a center for issues of women’s rights and free love (both of which Millay espoused) (Napierkowski, 79). While in Greenwich Village, she kept herself busy with writing poetry and performing w

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Boissevain was Millay’s ideological and spiritual partner and the two were perfect for each other. She has some sense of a relationship with the person because of her use of the word “thou,” which is only used to refer to people that one knows very well. This immunity is so strong that the persona can take enough poison to kill ten men, and yet not be harmed by it at all. Finally, a third literary device is used and that device is alliteration. The persona ends the poem by telling how she can drink or take in this poison and survive it, while it has destroyed some men. Vincent Millay, is an Italian sonnet. The persona within this poem is in great conflict with herself because she does not know how to feel for the person she speaks of. This is particularly evident in her railings against the atrocities of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany during World War II (Napierkowski, 79). The first literary device to be discussed is metaphor. Vincent Millay died of a fatal heart attack at her home in Austerlitz, New York, on October 19, 1950. That rhythm of the poem can be found within the ninth line where it says, “Like him who day by day unto his draught.

The poem “Thou Art Not Lovelier Than Lilacs,” written by Edna St. Even though her emotional and physical powers depleted, she continued to write. These comparisons are not flattering though, they are just merely describing how this specific person the persona speaks of is really not all that beautiful.

The theme that is established throughout the poem can be identified with the old saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.

Approximate Word count = 1609
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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