Edna St. Vincent Millay Biography

Millay was born in 1892, in Rockland, Maine, to Cora Buzzelle Millay and Henry Tolman Millay. Inspired by her mother, who raised her following her parents' divorce, Millay became an independent child who freely explored her interest in music (for which she displayed a considerable aptitude), theater, and both the reading and writing of literature. Much of this pursuit took the form of writing poetry, and, by the time she was a teenager, Millay had already published poetry in the noted children's magazine St. Nicholas. At the age of nineteen Millay wrote what is considered her first major poem, "Renascence." The work was enthusiastically received, and, in part, earned Millay a scholarship to Vassar College. While it was obvious that she possessed a talent for verse, Millay's time at Vassar refined her natural skills and provided her with a significant source of culture and Scholarly acumen, including much of the feminist and political sensibilities that surfaced in her later work. While studying at Vassar, Millay continued to write. She regularly published her poems and plays in the school quarterly, and even composed the lyrics for a Founder's Day song.

Following her graduation, Millay took up residence in the New York borough of Greenwich Village, a noted haven for people of artistic sensibilities as well as a center for issues of women's rights and free love--both of which Millay espoused. While making a nominal living, she busied herself with writing poetry and acting with the Provincetown Players theater troupe. She also developed a taste for fast living, keeping a busy social calendar, and becoming romantically involved with several notable men of letters, including poet Arthur Davison Ficke and literary critic Edmund Wilson. By the arly 1920s, however, this lifestyle caught up with Millay, and she was beset with nervous exhaustion and ill health. Seeking better climates, she sailed for Europe, where she remained for two years. her income during this time came primarily from the writing of articles under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd.

Upon her return to New York in 1923, Millay met businessman Eugen Boissevain at a party; the two were married later that year. While his practical business skills freed Millay from day-to-day financial details, Boissevain was also the poet's ideological and spiritual partner, as he respected both her artistic pursuits and her feminist concerns. In addition to these advances in her personal life, Millay's career was on the rise; she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 and was granted an honorary degree from Tufts University in 1925. Her increased public profile  gave Millay a platform to voice her social conscience, and she regularly engaged in protests, including a campaign against the conviction and death sentence leveled against political radicals Sacco and Vanzetti.

Millay's writing throughout the late 1920s and 1930s reflected her political views, with many works taking the form of outright protest. This is particularly evident in her railings against the atrocities of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany during World War II. Despite her attempts to maintain an active schedule, however, Millay's health was quickly deteriorating. She had been in precarious shape since an auto accident in 1936, and the pressures of maintaining her artistic and social concerns, combined with the troubled climate during World War II, precipitated a nervous breakdown in 1944. Her recovery was slowed by a number of personal setbacks, the most significant being the death of Boissevain in 1945. Although her emotional and physical powers ere appreciably depleted, Millay continued to write. She was in the midst of compiling a poetry collection when she was struck by a fatal heart attack; she died at her home in Austerlitz, New York, on October, 1950.