By Jan
Enda St. Vincent Millay was a native of the Maine coast, and the picturesque area of Camden. This setting provided the inspiration and background for many of her poems, including her most famous piece Renascence.
Edna, or Vincent, as she was commonly known as, was born on February 22, 1892, in Rockland, Maine to Cora and Henry Millay. She had two younger sisters, Norma and Kathleen. Cora and Henry were divorced in 1900, leaving Cora to raise her daughters.
Millay had a happy childhood, and had always loved the arts. This love was directly related to her mother, who in raising her children had nurtured a shared love of music, poetry, writing and reading in all three. Millay was never without books to read, or songs to play on the piano.
After settling in Camden, Maine, Edna soon found much that intrigued her. She loved nature, and held a deep respect for the natural world. She frequently explored nearby Mt. Battie and Mt. Megunticook to great extent. After completing high school in 1909, Millay found the inspiration for one of her greatest poems at the peak of Mt. Battie. Renascence, which would be first published in The Lyric Year in 1912. It had been upon the encouragement of her mother that Edna had submitted her poem into the contest for The Lyric Year, as Edna had not had anything published since she became too old for the St. Nicholas Magazine�s youth section. Renascence won fourth place in The Lyric Year competition.
It was after Milly read Renascence aloud at a ball one night in 1912 that she was given the opportunity to further her career as a poet. In the audience was Miss Caroline B. Dow, of the Young Women's Christian Association. Dow talked with Millay, and urged her to attend college, and she also helped her to gain the necessary funds. In 1913, Millay entered Vassar.
After graduating from college in 1917, Millay published her first book, entitled Renascence and Other Poems. She then moved to Greenwich Village, in New York, and continued to write poetry, and also plays, some of which she starred in. She would publish whatever she could.
In 1920, Millay had the opportunity to write for Vanity Fair, which sent her to Europe for three years. In 1923, Millay was the first woman to win, for her poetry book The Harp Weaver, the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Millay published many other volumes and plays throughout her career, including A Few Figs from Thistles (1920), the play Aria da Capo (1920), the play The King's Henchman (1927).
In 1923, after many relationships with both women and men, (Millay was bisexual), she married Eugen Boissevain, who would be her husband for twenty-six years. The couple had an open marriage, which suited them both just fine. Throughout this time, Boissevain managed Millay�s career as a poet and playwright. Boissevain died in 1949 from lung cancer, (they were both smokers and drinkers), with Millay departing the earth the next year, on October 19, 1950, at her home, Steepletop, in Austerlitz, New York.
Bibliography
Gurko, Miriam. Restless Sprit: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1962.
http://members.aol.com/MillayGirl/bio.htm
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/millay/millay_life.htm
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=161
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