Millay, << mih LAY >> Edna St. Vincent (1892-1950), was an American poet. Many of her poems have romantic themes. She wrote about love and death, about the self and the universe, and about the feelings of rebellious youth. In her treatment of these subjects, she combined sentimentality with wit and sophistication.
Millay was born on Feb. 22, 1892, in Rockland, Maine. She graduated from Vassar College in 1917. She did some of her best work while very young. “Renascence,” a poem about a personal religious experience, was written when she was only 19 years old. A Few Figs from Thistles (1920) was one of three works for which she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1923. The other two works were The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver and eight sonnets.
Millay’s later poetry became increasingly concerned with modern history. Conversation at Midnight (1937) deals with events that were leading to World War II. The Murder of Lidice (1942) tells about the destruction of a Czechoslovak town by German troops during the war. Millay was fond of the sonnet form, and her many sonnets were published in 1941. A definitive collection of her poems appeared in 1956. She also wrote several plays, including the one-act poetic fantasy Aria da Capo (1919). Millay died on Oct. 19, 1950.
