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    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed (Sonnet 18)"
    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed (Sonnet 18)"
    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed (Sonnet 18)"
    Ebook35 pages25 minutes

    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed (Sonnet 18)"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed (Sonnet 18)," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 28, 2016
    ISBN9781535825306
    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed (Sonnet 18)"

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      A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed (Sonnet 18)" - Gale

      12

      I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed (Sonnet XVIII)

      Edna St. Vincent Millay

      1923

      Introduction

      Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet I, being born a woman and distressed first appeared as Sonnet XVIII in an unconnected sequence in her 1923 volume The Harp-Weaver, and Other Poems. This volume includes an extended poem that Millay originally published as a pamphlet, The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver, for which she became the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1923. Only thirty-two years of age at the time, Millay had actually received critical attention as early as age twenty, when her transcendentalist narrative poem Renascence, about a young woman's spiritual communion with nature, ranked fourth in a competition, appeared in an anthology, and was singled out by reviewers for acclaim. Moving to Greenwich Village in New York City after her college years, Millay became especially well known for stirring recollections of emotional experiences, often as drawn from her romantically free lifestyle. The sonnet I, being born a woman and distressed is a reflective account of a brief but ultimately meaningless attraction experienced by the poet. In its allusion to and consideration of all women's intimate needs, the sonnet is representative of Millay's serving in her era as the lyrical voice of a new generation of liberated women.

      Author Biography

      Millay was born on February 22, 1892, in Rockland, Maine, the first of three daughters of Henry and Cora Millay. In 1900, Cora divorced her husband, who had a weakness for poker, and took her girls to Camden, Maine, where she instilled in them self-reliance and appreciation for music and literature. Known as Vincent, Millay displayed impressive musical talent and was nearly directed toward a musical career. However, she had a fondness for nature and leaned more toward literature. When she was fourteen, she published the poem Forest Trees, to be followed by others, in the juvenile magazine St. Nicholas. At her high school, she was editor-in-chief of the school magazine, and for her graduation in 1909, she gave a dramatic reading of one of her poems. Millay's first critical recognition came

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