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    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Aria da capo"
    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Aria da capo"
    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Aria da capo"
    Ebook43 pages32 minutes

    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Aria da capo"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Aria da capo," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama 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 Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 12, 2016
    ISBN9781535818674
    A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Aria da capo"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Aria da capo" - Gale

      10

      Aria da Capo

      Edna St. Vincent Millay

      1919

      Introduction

      Edna St. Vincent Millay's one-act play Aria da Capo, written at the end of World War I, has often been called an antiwar play. It features a central allegorical story of two innocent shepherds, good friends who are driven to suspicion and then to killing each other. Their tragic story is framed by scenes of two comic characters whose trivial dialogue highlights the indifference that humans feel toward conflict and death. Though Millay is better known for her poetry than for her drama, Aria da Capo is generally considered her most important play. Written early in her career, it demonstrates the command of meter and form, the understanding of music and of theater history, and the social and political concerns that would reappear throughout her work.

      The play was first produced by the Province-town Players on December 5, 1919, in the New York City acting company's small theater on Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village. It was a simple, low-budget production, with Millay's sister Norma and Norma's future husband playing two of the five roles. By the time it closed two weeks later, the play was recognized as one of the best the small company had put on, and when Millay issued the script as a book in 1920, Aria da Capo had already been performed in several other small theaters. It has been produced steadily ever since, on college campuses and in theater festivals, typically as part of a program of one act plays. The text is available in a 2009 edition from Dodo Press.

      Author Biography

      Millay was born on February 22, 1892, in Rockland, Maine. Her middle name, St. Vincent, was the name of a hospital where her uncle had been treated well, and the girl was always called Vincent within the family. Her parents divorced when Millay was eight, and she and her two sisters were raised by their mother, Cora Buzzelle Millay, who encouraged them to be independent, to appreciate art and music, and to read. As a young child Millay began writing poetry, and it was her mother who suggested she submit her long poem Renascence to a literary contest. The poem was published in the 1912 edition of the anthology The Lyric Year, leading to praise, to mentoring from more experienced writers, and to a scholarship to Vassar College.

      At Vassar, a college for intelligent and free-thinking women, Millay continued to write poetry, and also wrote and acted in plays. She studied literature and languages, finding ideas, forms and images in classical and world literatures that she would draw on throughout her career. After graduating

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