Edna St Vincent Millay
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deficiency in masculinity. Though later commentators have generally been more tactful and less crass, a more recent poet,
, observes that this kind of venomous condescension has echoed down the years.
was a charismatic American poet of the earlier twentieth century, who through her lifestyle came to stand for the sexually and economically liberated woman of the 1920s. She wrote particularly sonnets, love lyrics, and plays, as well as short stories, a libretto, and life-writing in the form of diaries and letters. From the beginning her work included passionate anti-war writing, which paved the way during the early years of the second world war for polemic against America's isolationist stance. Her later poems reach a deeper and more serious register, but by then her reputation was already in sharp decline. In 1937
accused her of
Biography
Her unusual second name came from the fact that her mother's brother Charlie was brought back to life at
, New York, after a bizarre shipping accident, and that
's mother received the news (both of the accident and recovery) almost as she went into labour.Though her regular nickname was Vincent,
and her husband were constantly adding to their collection of nicknames for each other, often deliberately absurd.