S1. A., H. B. "Vagabondage: Floyd Dell Writes an Apologia for the Intelligentsia." Boston Evening Transcript 19 June 1926, part 6: 4.
Review of Dell's Intellectual Vagabondage. M briefly mentioned. Dell, M, Sinclair Lewis, and e. e. cummings were more important to the generation whose ideas they survey than are the persons and ideas they treat.
S2. Aaron, Daniel. Writers on the Left: Episodes in American Literary Communism. New York: Harcourt, 1961.
Briefly notes that Floyd Dell met M in 1917. Places M in the Sacco-Vanzetti execution protests.
S3. A[dams], F[ranklin] P. "The Conning Tower." New York World 10 Oct. 1928: 15.
Review of BS in the form of a poem parodying M's style.
S4. - - -. "The Conning Tower." New York World 13 Oct. 1928: 11.
Brief mention. "Miss Millay may take two weeks to write a single line, and the chances are that it will be known a century from now."
S5. Allen, Everett S. Famous American Humorous Poets. New York: Dodd, 1968.
Brief mentions of M in biographical chapters on Franklin Pierce Adams, Phyllis McGinley, and Dorothy Parker.
S6. Atkins, Elizabeth. Edna St. Vincent Millay and Her Times. New York: Russell, 1964.
Reissue of 1936 volume. Major work on M. Omits only Nancy Boyd stories from period of childhood to WFG. Discusses literary influences and M's relationship to her times. Sees her in the forefront of twentieth-century trends. M is initiator not imitator. Does not demonstrate change or development in M.
S7. Beach, Joseph Warren. Obsessive Images: Symbolism in Poetry of the 1930's and 1940's. Ed. William Van O'Connor. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1960.
Quotes from 1939 poem by Kenneth Patchen poking fun at M's poetry. Names M, Lindsay, Wylie, and others as "innovators in form and style." "They were and felt themselves to be innovators, but they did not in large measure depend for their effect on being 'different.'"
S8. Bennett, Jesse Lee. What Books Can Do for You: A Sketch Map of the Frontiers of Knowledge With Lists of Selected Books. New York: Doran, 1923.
Lists books which can be read for self-education in the humanities. Includes RN and HW. "Unexpectedness is certainly one of the qualities of Miss Millay's verse. But she has an authentic talent and great individuality."
S9. Berger, Meyer. "About New York." New York Times 10 Feb. 1954: 31.
Briefly names M as a person of "real talent" who inhabited Greenwich Village. Her group was distinct from the "Bodenheim-Kemp dynasty."
S10. Bodenheim, Maxwell. My Life and Loves in Greenwich Village. New York: Bridgehead, 1954.
Brief comment on M's "First Fig." Author says he once occupied her Cherry Lane apartment.
S11. Bogan, Louise. Achievement in American Poetry, 1900-1950. Chicago: Regnery, 1951.
M is "lyric poet of the first order." She was hampered by sentimentality and self-centerness. Nihilism and "a close attachment to literary fashion" kept her from achieving maturity. Reprints two poems.
S12. - - -. "Edna Millay." A Poet's Alphabet: Reflections on the Literary Art and Vocation. Ed. Robert Phelps and Ruth Limmer. New York: McGraw, 1970. 298-99.
Reprinted from #S16.
S13. - - -. "The Heart and the Lyre." Mademoiselle 25 (May 1947): 184-85 ff.
Short survey of American women poets and review of prejudices against them. M is among women lyric poets who appeared around 1918 and who "helped to resolve hampering attitudes of the period." The best of M's rebellious works helped restore "genuine and frank feeling" to a genteel literary environment.
S14. - - -. "The Heart and the Lyre." Selected Criticism. New York: Noonday, 1955. 335-42.
Reprinted from #S13.
S15. - - -. "The Heart and the Lyre." A Poet's Alphabet: Reflections on the Literary Art and Vocation. Ed. Robert Phelps and Ruth Limmer. New York: McGraw, 1970. 424-29.
Reprinted from #S13.
S16. - - -. "Unofficial Feminine Laureate." Selected Criticism. New York: Noonday, 1955. 154-56.
Reprinted from New Yorker 15 (20 May 1939): 80-82. Review of HWQ. Development shown in WFG is not present in this volume. "The present book, although it bears marks of the poet's magnanimity of nature and her basic poetic gifts, is a strange mixture of maturity and unresolved youth." As unofficial laureate, M has been tempted to re-use successful effects. She has not demonstrated maturity in coming to terms with herself or in withdrawing her own personality from her work.
S17. - - -. What the Woman Lived; Selected Letters of Louise Bogan 1920-1970. Ed. Ruth Limmer. New York: Harcourt, 1973.
Letters from 1924 to 1969, to Edmund Wilson, Rolfe Humphries, Ruth Benedict, Morton D. Zabel, Theodore Roethke, and May Sarton mention M.
S18. Bradley, William Aspenwall. Rev. of The Lyric Year. Bookman 37 (Apr. 1913): 192-96.
"Renascence" is a "more remarkable production" than any of the prize winners. Notes the poem's "ecstasy" and "feminine hysteria and naivete." First section of the poem is in "the visionary Celtic manner." Long quote from "Renascence."
S19. Brinnin, John Malcolm. "Millay, Edna St. Vincent." Notable American Women 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Ed. Edward T. Jones. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1971. 526-38.
Short biography and brief assessment. Brief bibliography of secondary sources.
S20. Britt, George. "Edna Millay, Looking Like a Poetess, Here for All-Night 'Pub-Crawling' Tour." New York World-Telegram 27 Mar. 1931: 3.
Interview with M. Gives impression of her physical health and vitality. Includes M's comments on FI and "Epitaph for the Race of Man," her concern for others, the poet's function, and her love of music. Notes her enjoyment of gardening and her collection of dictionaries and other word books.
S21. - - -. "Montmartre in Manhattan." New York World-Telegram 16 May 1932, sec. 2: 13.
First of series of articles on Greenwich Village. Briefly mentions Floyd Dell and M holding hands in Washington Square.
S22. - - -. "Montmartre in Manhattan." New York World-Telegram 19 May 1932, sec. 2: 19.
Part of series of articles on Greenwich Village. Mentions M living in poverty and writing poetry which was accepted by the Yale Review and rejected by The Masses.
S23. - - -. "Montmartre in Manhattan." New York World-Telegram 20 May 1932, sec. 2: 17.
Last of series of articles on Greenwich Village. Includes photo of M. Tells how she auditioned for part in Floyd Dell's play The Angel Intrudes. Tells of her association with the Provincetown Players.
S24. Brooks, Van Wyck. The Confident Years: 1885-1915. New York: Dutton, 1952.
Names M as one whose poetry set the tone of the 1920s and 1930s. Cites her as a poet who came to fame after WWI.
S25. Browne, Maurice. Too Late to Lament: An Autobiography. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1956.
Briefly mentions M's and Arthur Davison Ficke's presence at a New York party. Describes their relationship as "platonic" on Ficke's authority. Praises M as a writer of lyrics.
S26. Burton, Richard. "Plays, Past and Present." New York Evening Post Literary Review 28 May 1921: 3.
Includes review of The Provincetown Plays, ed. George Cram Cook and Frank Shay. AC is one of three outstanding plays in this volume. It "has become a Little Theatre favorite up and down the land, and . . ., slight as it may seem, has infinite suggestibility and reverberates overtones."
S27. Butcher, Fanny. Many Lives--One Love. New York: Harper, 1972.
Short comment on M's appeal to men and the identity of the beloved in FI. Butcher never found M beautiful. Compares Butcher's life of labor in her bookshop to M's candle in "First Fig."
S28. Calverton, V. F. "The Literary Arts." Sex in the Arts: A Symposium. Ed. John Francis McDermott and Kendall B. Taft. New York: Harper, 1932. 1-17.
Contrasts love poetry of M, Arthur Davison Ficke, and Donald Evans with that of Shelley, Byron, and Swinburne. The latter group emphasizes emotion, the former emphasizes "realistic, physical fact." M has best and most effectively communicated the new attitude to sex.
S29. Chamberlain, John. "Books of the Times." New York Times 29 Sept. 1933: 17.
Review of Floyd Dell's Homecoming. Brief mentions of M as important person treated in the autobiography. M mentioned as poet who helped end the genteel tradition.
S23. "Chronicle and Comment." Bookman 70 (Jan. 1930): 529-44.
Summary of characters of the 1920s in America. Includes photo of M upon her election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters on Nov. 14, 1929. Briefly identifies her as the poet of the young, the spokesperson for the Greenwich Village ideal and for the post-war ideal of love.
S31. Cook, Harold Lewis. "Edna St. Vincent Millay: An Essay in Appreciation." A Bibliography of the Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay, by Karl Yost. New York: Franklin, 1968. 7-55.
Reprinted from 1937 edition. Traces the development of M's work and discusses her approach to poetry.
S32. Corbin, John. "The Play." New York Times 11 Oct. 1923: 16.
Review of performance of Launzi, a Hungarian play by Ferenc Molnar adapted by M. No comment on M except to say that dialogue as adapted "suggests the vague and wordy simplicity of Maeterlinck's early mysticism."
S33. Cottrell, Beekman W. "Edna St. Vincent Millay." Lectures on Some Modern Poets. Carnegie Series in English 2. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute of Technology P, 1955. 25-41.
M is a literary-mythical personality but is a victim of her own legend. Divides her poems into three categories: 1) those inspired by poet's relation with human beings; 2) those that deal with natural phenomena as they influenced her life; 3) those that deal in natural terms with abstract ideas. Her best poetry transfers poetic vision from writer to reader. Her use of nature is authoritative. She is the greatest master of the sonnet form of our time.
S34. Crowder, Richard. "Poetry: 1900 to the 1930s." American Literary Scholarship/An Annual 1971. Ed. J. Robert Robbins. Durham: Duke U P, 1973. 277-98.
Biographical essay.
S35. "Current Magazines." New York Times Book Review 13 May 1923: 16.
Notes that M contributed "The Concert" to the May issue of Poetry. Reprints the poem.
S36. Curti, Merle. The Growth of American Thought. New York: Harper, 1943.
M is an example of "sophisticated treatment of sexual freedom."
S37. - - -. The Growth of American Thought. 2nd ed. New York: Harper, 1951.
Information on M is identical to #S36.
S38. - - -. The Growth of American Thought. 3rd ed. New York: Harper, 1964.
Information on M is identical to #S36.
S39. D., H. M. Letter to the Editor. New York Times Review of Books 19 Jan. 1913: 26.
Challenges editors' awarding of prizes in The Lyric Year contest. Wonders "why the first prize was not awarded to the marvelously original, spontaneous, and striking poem, 'Renascence,' by Miss Edna St. Vincent Millay, a young girl of 20, living in a tiny fishing hamlet on the coast of Maine."
S40. Damon, S[amuel] Foster. Amy Lowell: A Chronicle with Extracts from Her Correspondence. Boston: Houghton, 1935.
Names "Renascence" among evidence of an American poetic renaissance. Ranks Elinor Wylie above M, but M has permanent importance. Quotes 1923 letter from Thomas Hardy on M as "the most promising of the younger poets." A 1923 Lowell letter to May Lamberton Becker ranks poets including M. Notes Lowell's admiration of AC. Letter from Lowell to Louis Untermeyer commenting on M's lack of skill as "a platform orator."
S41. - - -. Amy Lowell: A Chronicle with Extracts from Her Correspondence. Hamden: Archon, 1966.
Reprinted from #S40.
S42. Dasgupta, Gauton. "Millay, Edna St. Vincent." McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama: An International Reference Work in 5 Volumes. Ed. Stanley Hochman. Vol. 3. New York: McGraw, 1972. 385.
Brief list of literary and dramatic accomplishments.
S43. De la Selva, Salomon. "Edna St. Vincent Millay." America 62 (enero 1950): 7-32.
Tells how de la Selva and M explored New York on bus and subway and about the night ride on the Staten Island Ferry which appeared in "Recuerdo." M and de la Selva met for the last time in 1941 in New York.
S44. - - -. "Edna St. Vincent Millay." Cuadernos universitarios 5 (Aug. 1969), 125-59.
Reprinted from #S43.
S45. D[ell], F[loyd]. "On Reading the Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay." Liberator 1 (May 1918): 41.
Petrarchan sonnet addressed to M. Comments on RN and on Dell's relationship with M. Treats the search for the impossible as seen from youth and middle age.
S46. Dell, Floyd. "The Gossip Shop." Bookman 55 (Mar. 1922): 87-96.
Quotes letter by Dell partly concerning M. Humorous paragraph recounting M's European travels through Paris and Rome to Albania. She is "finishing" a novel.
S47. - - -. "The Poems of the Month." Bookman 56 (Jan. 1923): 614-16.
Dell selects poems from recent periodicals to reprint and critique. Says M's poem "To the Liberty Bell" in Liberator is chiefly notable as showing the presence of sociological passions in a mind hitherto supposed by her admirers to be concerned with other matters exclusively.
S48. Dickinson, Asa Don. The Best Books of Our Time: 1901-1925. New York: Wilson, 1931.
Includes M's work in lists of "best books."
S49. - - -. The World's Best Books: Homer to Hemingway. New York: Wilson, 1953.
Includes CL, CS, and KH among the best of the world's literature. Works were chosen by consensus of "expert opinion."
S50. Rev. of Distressing Dialogues. London Times Literary Supplement 11 Dec. 1924: 844.
Includes general comments on the function of journalists, with whom M is identified. M's descent from the poetic mode is graceful. Praises her wit, "so woven into the texture of the situation that it is not easily detached." She "has only a small measure of the prophetic vanity, only just enough, that is, to give her wit a satiric bent and not enough to prevent that ironic self-inspection from lack of which the critical attitude becomes so grimly humourless."
S51. Dreiser, Theodore. Letters of Theodore Dreiser: A Selection. Ed. Robert H. Elias. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1959.
1921 letter to William C. Lengal suggesting possible contributors to Hearst's International. Includes M among twenty writers with worthwhile temperaments and points of view. Letter from 1944 to Arthur Davison Ficke uses M as an example of an artist in physical and financial decline.
S52. E., E. F. "Writers and Books." Boston Evening Transcript 8 Nov. 1933, sec. 4: 3.
Briefly mentions M's Poems Selected for Young People as being number fourteen on a list of books chosen for significance by the Columbia University Institute of Arts and Sciences members.
S53. "Father of Noted Author To Be Buried Here Today." Bangor (Maine) Daily News 24 Dec. 1935: 1-2.
Article on death of Henry Tolman Millay, father of M. Says M is author of "words of world renown." Claims she has always been in touch with her father, but at present she is in Florida recouping her health. Paraphrases M's husband on M's vast knowledge. FE will be one of her most interesting works.
S54. "Floyd Dell Dead; Novelist and Editor." Washington Post 29 July 1969: C5.
Dell's obituary. Identifies M as Dell's close friend who starred in his plays Sweet and Twenty and The Angel Intrudes.
S55. Forman, Henry James. "Contemporary American Writers." The Outline of Literature: A Plain Story Simply Told. Ed. John Drinkwater. Vol. 3. New York: Putnam, 1924. 965-94.
Brief evaluation of M. "To read her is to concede her genius." Each of her published volumes "contains something rare and priceless, the work of a fine lyric poet."
S56. Frank, Charles P. Edmund Wilson. New York: Twayne, 1970.
In discussing I Thought of Daisy Frank says Rita's weak characterization is due to her being modeled on M. Tells how M, after reading Daisy manuscript, appealed to Wilson to rework it before publication.
S57. Gelb, Arthur and Barbara Gelb. O'Neill! New York: Harper, 1962.
Biography of Eugene O'Neill. Briefly mentions M as actress with Provincetown Players in Floyd Dell's The Angel Intrudes. Notes that M's play PMP was produced by the Provincetown Players. Says M visited O'Neill's house at Peaked Hill Bar. Notes that O'Neill sent flowers to M's sister Norma upon Edna's death.
S58. Gelb, Barbara. So Short a Time: A Biography of John Reed and Louise Bryant. New York: Norton, 1973.
Briefly mentions that Eugen Boissevain, who later married M, paid for Reed's 1917 trip to Russia. Notes Reed's meeting with M at a party in Croton. Identifies M as a gifted woman with a reputation that "symbolized for many of the emerging artists all that was gallant and romantic and idealistic in their thrust for self-expression."
S59. Gibson, Lydia. Rev. of The Harp-Weaver. Liberator 7 (Feb. 1924): 32.
"Sonnets From an Ungrafted Tree" "show a fine and brittle bitterness" lacking the flippancy characteristic of much of M's work. Praises title poem for lack of sentimentality. While some poems should have been omitted, "there is loveliness not soon forgotten" in this volume.
S60. Gold, Michael. "The Masses Tradition." Masses and Mainstream 4 (Aug. 1951): 45-55.
Briefly mentions M as a prominent writer who contributed some of her earliest writing to The Masses.
S61. "The Gossip Shop." Bookman 56 (Sept. 1922): 119-28.
Includes a poll taken among editors and publishers of their opinion of the five most important literary personages who have become prominent in the past ten years. M tied with Sinclair Lewis for seventh place.
S62. Gould, Jean. Modern American Playwrights. New York: Dodd, 1966.
Brief mention of M, a discovery of Jig Cook. Cook wrote plays for the Playwrights Theater.
S63. Gurko, Leo. The Angry Decade. New York: Dodd, 1947.
Focuses on the 1930s. Cites M as an older poet who did not adopt new forms. Paragraph speculating on why M's political verse, though passionate, was "badly written." Adopts a personal rather than a social or thematic solution. Names M among writers of "notable verse" in the 1920s.
S64. Hamilton, Carol Vandermeer. "Dynamite: Anarchy as Modernist Aesthetic." Diss. Brandeis U, 1973. SDAI-A 34/07 (1978): 4395.
Chapter 4 uses texts, not identified in the abstract, by K. A. Porter, Upton Sinclair, Dos Passos, and M to dispute the claim that modernist writers "typically take flight from the political into subjectivity and private styles."
S65. Hapgood, Hutchens. "The Instinct to Conform." New Republic 77 (29 Nov. 1933): 80.
Review of Floyd Dell's autobiography Homecoming. Briefly mentions the value of his tribute to M's poetry.
S66. Hart, John E. Floyd Dell. New York: Twayne, 1971.
Brief mentions of M as member of Liberal Club, Dell's lover, and a writer assisted by Dell.
S67. Heiney, Donald and Lenthiel H. Downs. "Edna St. Vincent Millay." Recent American Literature to 1930. Essentials of Contemporary Literature of the Western World. Vol. 3. Woodbury: Barron's Educational Series, 1973. 323-26.
Includes short discussion of M's career, a biography, and short analyses of four poems. Much of M's fame is due to the sensation caused by "Renascence" and to the Greenwich Village legend which surrounded her. The attitude expressed in her poems is best described by the term "romantic." Notes her themes and her conventional style.
S68. Hicks, Granville. The Great Tradition; An Interpretation of American Literature Since the Civil War. New York: Macmillan, 1933.
Briefly names M as a poet active after 1912 and during the "poetic renaissance." This period produced "no mature and satisfying poet."
S69. - - -. The Great Tradition; An Interpretation of American Literature. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1935.
Information is identical to #S68.
S70. Hoffman, Frederick, Charles Allen, and Carolyn F. Ulrich. The Little Magazine; A History and a Bibliography. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1946.
Briefly mentions that M published work in Poetry, The Mirror, The Greenwich Villager, and The Bermondsey Book, all little magazines.
S71. Horton, Rod W. and Herbert W. Edwards. Backgrounds of American Literary Thought. New York: Appleton, 1952.
Names M as important writer of the 1920s. She advanced the idea of sexual equality for women "particularly in her hedonistic acceptance of the transiency of love in Fatal Interview."
S72. - - -. Backgrounds of American Literary Thought. 2nd ed. Appleton-Century Handbooks of Literature. Ed. Albert C. Baugh. New York: Appleton, 1967.
Identical to #S71.
S73. Jacobsen, Josephine. "From Anne to Marianne: Some Women in American Poetry." Two Lectures. Washington: Library of Congress, 1973. 13-29.
M mentioned in this survey of women poets. Although M experienced social freedom, she still reacted to a masculine social structure. She "showed clearly a sort of midway struggle in the process of self-identification." She experienced "simultaneous attack and insecurity." "Her reputation is now in that trough between the adulation of her work when it was in vogue and the steady respect I believe it will be entitled to, in its finest forms."
S74. Lawrence, Isabelle Wentworth. "Love Today in Greenwich Village." Boston Evening Transcript 3 July 1926, part 6: 4.
Review of Floyd Dell's Love in Greenwich Village. Mentions M acting in The Angel Intrudes, a play by Dell. Describes AC as "glorious."
S75. Leisy, Ernest Erwin. American Literature; An Interpretative Survey. New York: Crowell, 1929. 230-31.
Brief description of M's style. Places her with "modern youth." "So brilliant and graceful a writer promises well for the new era of poetry."
S76. Lewis, Sinclair. From Main Street to Stockholm: Letters of Sinclair Lewis 1919-1930. Ed. Harrison Smith. New York: Harcourt, 1952.
November 1921 letter to Alfred Harcourt from Rome on the subject of a contract for M to write a novel she has already planned. Praises her poetry. December 1921 letter reports conversation with M about novel. Lewis says M is conceited. December 1921 letter saying M has offered her novel to Horace Liveright.
S77. "'Little Stone House' Wins." New York Times 13 May 1923, sec. 1: 16.
In little plays tournament, M's AC was performed by the Gats of Manhattan, a little theater organization.
S78. Loveman, Amy. "The Clearing House." Saturday Review of Literature 11 (29 Sept. 1934): 149.
In recommending books for a young girl's personal library, Loveman names An American Omnibus, edited by Carl Van Doren, because it contains poetry by M and others.
S79. Lowell, Amy. A Critical Fable. Boston: Houghton, 1922.
Long poem commenting on current state of poetry. M named last. Praises AC, "Bean-Stalk," and her "charming scenery," which is possibly her treatment of nature.
S80. - - -. "Two Generations in American Poetry." New Republic 38, Part II (5 Dec. 1923): 1-3.
The newest generation of poets is feminine and composed of two groups, the Secessionists and the Lyrists. The latter are by far the better. Chief among them are M and Elinor Wylie. Lowell contrasts M with Wylie. M lacks intellectual content but Wylie does not. M is "that delightfully clever exponent of the perennial theme of love." Although the Lyrists are "immensely popular," their "wilfully restricted limits" may not allow them to maintain their popularity.
S81. Luccock, Halford E. Contemporary American Literature and Religion. Chicago: Willett, 1934.
Quotes Floyd Dell on M. M, hating war, comforts her socialist and pacifist friends with poetry. Probably refers to The Masses trial of 1918. M is representative of social discontent and protest. She writes protest poetry using the figure of Jesus to contrast with his supposed followers as in "To Jesus on His Birthday." "Justice Denied in Massachusetts" is "a powerful expression of restrained emotion and challenge."
S82. M., D. L. "What Life Means to Reminiscent Mr. Dell." Boston Evening Transcript 4 Nov. 1933, Book Section: 1.
Review of Dell's autobiography Homecoming. Briefly mentions M. Says Dell lived in Greenwich Village when "Edna Millay and her family were finding its bohemian atmosphere little different from the life they had made for themselves in Camden, Maine."
S83. Rev. of Make Bright the Arrows. Time 36 (9 Dec. 1940): 90-92.
Harsh review. Verses are in "three ill-assorted styles": classicism, fancy doggerel, and "'heightened speech'" of modern verse. The book is M's attempt to pay her literary debt to war. "War alone could make disillusions such as hers come true."
S84. Manly, John Matthews and Edith Rickert. Contemporary American Literature; Bibliographies and Study Outlines. Rev. by Fred B. Millett. New York: Harcourt, 1929.
Brief biography, study questions, bibliography of primary and secondary sources.
S85. Matlaw, Myron. "Millay, Edna St. Vincent." Modern World Drama: An Encyclopedia. New York: Dutton, 1972. 525-26.
Brief synopsis of M's accomplishments in the theater. Poetry was her "most memorable work."
S86. May, Henry Fanham. The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Time 1912-1917. New York: Knopf, 1959.
The beginnings of the twentieth century can be traced to the pre-war period. WWI was not necessarily the precipitating factor. Includes brief mentions of M. Recalls The Lyric Year competition. Says Greenwich Village's "creative period" was the years associated with M's and others' residence there. Notes M's association with the Provincetown Players and with Mitchell Kennerley.
S87. - - -. The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Time 1912-1917. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1964.
Reprinted from #S86.
S88. McAfee, Helen. "What Are They Reading in Books?" Bookman 58 (Jan. 1924): 513-18.
Examines what characters in fiction read. Briefly mentions that Janet, the heroine of Floyd Dell's novel Janet March, reads a lyric by M.
S89. McAleer, John J. Rev. of The Poet and Her Book, by Jean Gould. America 2 (Aug. 1969): 75-76.
Gould's biography confirms that M's "best is unassailable." M has survived "the hostility of critics who deplored her metrical exactness in an age of innovation."
S90. McGill, Ralph E[merson]. The South and the Southerner. Boston: Little, 1963.
Journalist McGill's recollection of meeting M in Nashville when she was there to lecture. Year not specified. He obtained alcohol for her from a pharmacy and admired her gold dress.
S91. McGrory, Mary. "Reading and Writing--Why All the Shouting About the '20s, Wonders Floyd Dell, Noted Survivor." Washington Sunday Star 9 Nov. 1952, sec. E: 7.
This article is the result of an interview with Floyd Dell. The author credits some of the revival of interest in the 1920s to the publication of Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay. While Dell is disillusioned with the accomplishments of the era, he believes M's poetry is "the great triumph of the era, its most durable accomplishment. Her poetry is affirmative and alive, in contrast to the sanctimonious, pious, renunciatory poetry of T. S. Eliot and his followers."
S92. McKee, May J. "Millay's Aria da Capo: Form and Meaning." Modern Drama 9 (Sept. 1966): 163-69.
Describes how M uses the elements of commedia dell'arte "to unify form and meaning" in Aria da Capo." Her use of these elements in a 20th century play has "true and vital aesthetic power."
S93. McKinzie, Richard D. The New Deal for Artists. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1973.
Mentions without name a poem written by M and printed in the WPA Defender which criticizes Roosevelt for cutting back the WPA payroll so soon after its constituents helped elect him.
S94. Millett, Fred B. "Introduction to Contemporary American Literature." Contemporary American Literature; Bibliographies and Study Outlines, by John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert. Rev. by Fred B. Millett. New York: Harcourt, 1929. 3-98.
Selects Wylie, Teasdale, and M as most distinguished women poets. M has achieved popularity without losing her poetic integrity. Her work is even and understandable. Her poetry shows her awareness of the transience of love, the influence of the New England landscape, and a mastery of the sonnet.
S95. "Miss Millay to Read for Woman's Party." New York World 8 Mar. 1925: 2S.
Says M will read her poetry in the home of Mrs. Alfred Bossom. The event is a benefit for The National Woman's Party of which M is a charter member.
S96. "More Than Poetry." Christian Science Monitor 31 Dec. 1932: 13.
Review of PMP, published for the first time in 1932. Recounts history of the play. Describes the play as representative of the "'teens, gay and absurd but still critical of life in a roguish and shrewd way."
S97. Moss, Howard. Introduction. The Poet's Story. New York: Macmillan, 1973. ix-xx.
Introduction to collection of short stories written by poets. M's "The Murder in the Fishing Cat" is classic example of fiction in which the poet abandons usual themes and methods. It is a "window story" as opposed to a mirror story in that it looks out on the broader world instead of into the author's life.
S98. - - -. "Notes on Contributors." The Poet's Story. Macmillan, 1973. 263-66.
Brief biography. Says M, best known for FI, was "probably" the most popular of America's serious poets.
S99. Munson, Gorham. "Greenwich Village That Was: Seedbed of the Nineteen-Twenties." Literary Review 5 (1962): 313-35.
Very brief mention of M as "the poet of the Village" in FFT.
S100. O'Connor, Richard and Dale L. Walker. The Lost Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed. New York: Harcourt, 1967.
Account of Reed meeting M at a Croton party and the ensuing ferry ride. Notes resemblance between M and Reed's wife, Louise Bryant.
S101. Olson, Elder. "Louise Bogan and Leonie Adams." Chicago Review 8 (Fall 1954): 70-87.
Contrasts M's love poetry with Bogan's. M tries to give love a tragic stature by equating it with classical myth, but she fails because she tells rather than shows.
S102. "Only the Captain's Daughter Stays Sane." New York Morning Telegraph 23 Nov. 1918: 12.
Review of opening play bill for Provincetown Players. One play was PMP, "a pretty little fantasy." Comments on M's acting.
S103. Parry, Albert. Garrets and Pretenders; A History of Bohemianism in America. New York: Covici-Friede, 1933.
Brief mentions of M visiting Santa Fe, New Mexico, living in the Village, and being published by Frank Shay. M was not a proper bohemian but "the product of New England hills and stars" whose verse and feelings "had nothing in common with the gay pretensions and social protest of the Village." Some of this book was previously published in #S105.
S104. - - -. Garrets and Pretenders; A History of Bohemianism in America. Rev. ed. New York: Dover, 1960.
Revised from #S103. The parts concerning M are identical.
S105. - - -. "Soul Flights of the Village." American Mercury 24 (Oct. 1931): 189-97.
A history of Greenwich Village. The Village did not produce the artists who passed through it. An example is M. Although she wrote some of her best work and participated in the Little Theater movement when a Village resident, she was unmistakably a product of her New England origins. Partially reprinted in #S102.
S106. Phelps, Robert, and Peter Deane. The Literary Life: A Scrapbook Almanac of the Anglo-American Literary Scene from 1900 to 1950. New York: Farrar, 1968.
Lists literary events related to authors' lives in the years covered. M appears frequently from 1918 to 1950.
S107. "The Phoenix Nest." Saturday Review of Literature 3 (16 Apr. 1927): 742.
Claims to have been present at Steepletop when M and Elinor Wylie read from George O'Neil's The White Rooster.
S108. Pierce, Frederick E. "Three Poets Against Philistia." Rev. of The Hamlet, by Archibald MacLeish; Buck in the Snow, by Millay; and West-Running Brook, by Robert Frost. Yale Review 18 (Dec. 1928): 364-66.
M compared to Emily Bronte. Both are unconventional to the post-Victorians. While M is powerful, intense, and direct, her sincerity and wisdom are sometimes questionable. Her idea of humans clinging to life at all costs does not mesh with experience.
S109. Preston, Keith. "The Periscope." Chicago Daily News 21 Dec. 1921: 12.
Includes brief paragraph on M's benefactress preferring Vassar to Smith. M has graduated from Vassar.
S110. "Provincetown Players Back." Dramatic Mirror of Motion Pictures and the Stage 79 (9 Nov. 1918): 686.
Quotes letter from secretary of Provincetown Players saying that the group will open in new quarters on Macdougal Street with new plays, including one by M. Names M among active members of the group.
S111. "Provincetown Players: Eugene O'Neill's New Playlet of the Sea Features Program." Dramatic Mirror of Motion Pictures and the Stage 79 (14 Dec. 1918): 865.
Brief reviews of Where the Cross Is Made, by Eugene O'Neill; Gee-Rusalem, by Florence Kiper Frank; and PMP. It "has a very sophomoric story told in blank verse that sometimes has fluency and grace, but shows too evident a striving for beauty and poetry."
S112. Queen, Ellery. "Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)." Ellery Queen's Poetic Justice: 23 Stories of Crime, Murder, and Detection by World-Famous Poets from Geoffrey Chaucer to Dylan Thomas. New York: New American Library, 1967. 222-24.
Introduction to M's "The Murder in the Fishing Cat" included in collection of mystery short stories written by poets. Brief biography and assessment. M "satisfied both the proletariat and the intelligentsia, the commoner and the cognoscenti." Quotes letter from M describing how the story came to be written. Lists qualities of M's poetry.
S113. Rascoe, Burton. Before I Forget. Garden City: Doubleday, 1937.
Briefly mentions that M's work was published in Monroe's Poetry.
S114. Rich, Adrienne. "When We Dead Awaken: Writing As Re-Vision." College English 34 (Oct. 1972): 18-30.
Essay on the beginning or awakening consciousness of women. Names M among "older women poets" in whom author sought in error the same things found in poetry by men.
S115. Richwine, Keith Norton. "The Liberal Club: Bohemia and the Resurgence in Greenwich Village, 1912-1918." Diss. U of Pennsylvania, 1968. DA 30 (1988): 1179.
Lists M as member of Liberal Club. Says "Renascence" set the theme of "renaissance" for the year 1912.
S116. Rittenhouse, Jessie B. "The Lyric Year." New York Times Review of Books 1 Dec. 1912: 746.
Review of The Lyric Year. "Renascence" is "the freshest, most distinctive note in the book." There is a "crude" and "grotesque" side to the poem, but its freshness and originality compensate for its defects, which are those of youth. The poem should have won a prize.
S117. Robinson, Henry Morton. "Modern Poetry." Sex in the Arts: A Symposium. Ed. John Francis McDermott and Kendall B. Taft. New York: Harper, 1932. 18-33.
Short comment on FI. Elizabethan form and vocabulary conflict with M's image as a modern, "the most gifted female poet of our time." If the romanticism is a hoax, the poetry is acceptable.
S118. Rosenthal, M[acha] L[ouis] The Modern Poets: A Critical Introduction. New York: Oxford U P, 1960.
Compares Elizabeth Bishop's work to a "typical Millay poem."
S119. Sayler, Oliver M. Our American Theatre. New York: Brentano's, 1923.
Brief mentions of M's association with the Provincetown Players. Includes play bills for each season where M's play titles may be seen.
S120. - - -. Our American Theatre. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1971.
Reprinted from #S119.
S121. Shannon, David A. The Socialist Party of America: A History. New York: Macmillan, 1955.
Names M as supporter of Norman Thomas for president in 1932 and as member of a committee to further his election.
S122. - - -. The Socialist Party of America: A History. Chicago: Quadrangle, 1967.
Reprinted from #S121.
S123. - - -. Twentieth Century America: The United States Since the 1890's. Chicago: Rand, 1963.
Millay's "First Fig" characterized the mood of the country in the 1920s. Names M as librettist of KH, "one of the first American operas to make an impact." It was "a New York hit." Notes her turn to social questions in the 1930s with CM.
S124. - - -. Twentieth Century America: The United States Since the 1890's. 2nd ed. Chicago: Rand, 1969.
Reprinted from #S123.
S125. Shay, Frank. Letter to the Editor. Chicago Daily News 7 Dec. 1921: 14.
Comments on his publishing business. Says M, in Rome, has directed him to publish "Little Acorns," her "child poems." Says FFT is in its sixth edition and outsells Masefield three to one.
S126. Sheaffer, Louis. O'Neill: Son and Artist. Boston: Little, 1973.
Notes M's versatility in Provincetown Players, her "radiant performances in comedy," and her directing and writing. Mentions her poetry as a favorite of Catherine Givens, girlfriend of Shane O'Neill.
S127. - - -. O'Neill: Son and Playwright. Boston: Little, 1968.
Brief mentions of M place her in the Provincetown Players milieu in this biography of O'Neill.
S128. - - -. O'Neill: Son and Playwright. London: Dent, 1969.
Reprinted from #S127.
S129. Sheean, Vincent. The Indigo Bunting: A Memoir of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Schocken, 1973.
Reprinted from 1951 edition. Interesting account of Sheean's acquaintance with M in the 1940s. Lists M's figurative use of birds in her poetry. Discusses her knowledge of past poets and draws parallels between her sonnets and those of Shakespeare.
S130. "A Shirtsleeves History." Saturday Review of Literature 3 (4 Dec. 1926): 359-60.
Includes brief history of 1912 literature. This was the year of "Renascence," which appeared in The Lyric Year. Claims the anthology was designed by Ferdinand Pinney Earle.
S131. Sinclair, Upton. The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair. New York: Harcourt, 1962.
Names M as one of a new generation of writers known to Sinclair. Later lists her among those gifted persons he knew who succumbed to alcoholism.
S132. - - -. The Cup of Fury. Great Neck: Channel, 1956.
Anti-alcoholism book. Sees M, who "set the tempo of the time," and her poems as embodying the credo of Greenwich Village. Quotes Phyllis Bottome on M's drinking. Relates seeing M drink before and after a Pasadena, Calif., reading. Names M among alcoholics who should have used their powers to better the world but who instead suffered.
S133. - - -. Money Writes! New York: Boni, 1927.
Brief mention of M. She is a heroine who "has shown us that it is possible to combine the ecstasy of pure poetry with social conscience and intelligence."
S134. Smith, Alson J. Chicago's Left Bank. Chicago: Regnery, 1953.
Mentions M's presence in Chicago in 1912. Quotes her letter to Harriet Monroe asking for payment for poems appearing in Poetry.
S135. Smith, William Jay. "Louise Bogan: A Woman's Words." The Streaks of the Tulip: Selected Criticism. New York: Seymour Lawrence--Delacorte, 1972. 31-56.
Personal recollections of Bogan. Author admired Bogan in the mid 1930s although M was most admired by others.
S136. Symes, Lillian and Travers Clement. Rebel America; The Story of Social Revolt in the United States. New York: Harper, 1934.
Identifies M as a contributor to The Masses.
S137. Taggard, Genevieve. "Edna St. Vincent Millay." Equal Rights 12 (14 Mar. 1926): 35.
M is the "first woman poet to take herself seriously as an artist." Creative spirit of women formerly went into bearing children. M is nothing but a poet.
S138. Tanner, Louise. "The Best Years of Their Lives." Coronet 47 (Mar. 1960): 74-95.
Condensation of Tanner's Book Here Today. . . but dealing with only 6 of the 14 figures in the book. M is seen as "obsolete" by this time. Concerned mostly with her unconventional life style. Does not critique any of her work.
S139. - - -. "Our Own Latchkeys: Edna St. Vincent Millay." Here Today. . . . New York: Crowell, 1959. 50-74.
Account of well-known facts about M's life and work. Relates M's decline in popularity to the notion that "America had outgrown Greenwich Village." Generally sympathetic treatment of M's work volume by volume praising CM in particular. Considers FI "the last work by what one might call the old Edna." Offers no conclusive estimate of her stature.
S140. Tanselle, G. Thomas. "The Lyric Year: A Bibliographical Study." Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 56 (Fourth Quarter 1962): 454-71.
An attempt to ascertain the significance and influence of The Lyric Year. Lists all variant readings. Gives bibliographical description, details the contest, discusses controversy over awarding of prizes.
S141. Tate, Allen. "Modern Poets and Convention." The Forlorn Demon: Didactic and Critical Essays. Chicago: Regnery, 1953. 164-70.
This is a speech to Modern Language Association given in 1936 on convention and modern poets. Cites FI as using Elizabethan conventions but being "profoundly un-traditional." Style has dictated language which is not the language of the contemporary reader. See #216 for comment.
S142. - - -. "Modern Poets and Convention." The Forlorn Demon: Didactic and Critical Essays. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1970. 164-70.
Reprinted from #S141.
S143. - - -. "Quantity Test Adds to Worth of Miss Millay." Nashville Tennessean 10 Feb. 1924, Book Review and Literary Page: 1.
Review of HW; Bucolic Comedies, by Edith Sitwell; and Harmonium, by Wallace Stevens. Does not compare the books. Most space is devoted to M, who has published four books of poetry and withstood the ultimate test of a poet's inspiration, the test of quantity. M is in the foremost place among American lyric poets, but in HW she only sustains her reputation.
S144. - - -. "R. B. Blackmur and Others." Southern Review 3 (Summer 1937): 183-98.
Review of 9 volumes of poetry by Robert P. Tristram Coffin, John Holmes, Howard Mumford Jones, Laurence Whistler, Sara Bard Field, C. F. MacIntyre, Lawrence Lee, Louise Bogan, and R. P. Blackmur. In section on Bogan's The Sleeping Fury, cites M's popularity which Bogan and Leonie Adams will never have. While M deserves her reputation, Bogan and Adams deserve greater reputations but will not achieve it because they are "purer" poets than M, that is, they deal less with fashionable moral and stylistic concerns.
S145. - - -. "Tension in Poetry." Reason in Madness: Critical Essays. New York: Putnam, 1941. 62-81.
Quotes from "Justice Denied in Massachusetts" for example of "mass language," that is, language which results in sentimentality. For readers who do not share feelings exhibited in the poem, the poem is "impenetrably obscure." This is poetry of communication, used to convey ideas that might be better conveyed by science or social sciences.
S146. - - -. "Tension in Poetry." Reason in Madness: Critical Essays. Essay Index Reprint Ser. Freeport: Books for Libraries, 1968. 62-81.
Reprinted from #S145.
S147. Taubman, Howard. The Making of the American Theatre. New York: Coward-McCann, 1965.
Includes M in list of persons associated with the Provincetown Players "who made a difference on the American theatrical and literary scene."
S148. - - -. The Making of the American Theatre. Rev. ed. New York: Coward-McCann, 1967.
Revised from #S147. Information of M is unchanged..
S149. "Tense and Vivid Little Dramas." New York Sun 28 May 1921: 6.
Review of The Provincetown Plays, ed. George Cram Cook and Frank Shay. Names AC as an important play first produced by the Provincetown Players. Cannot explain the "peculiar appeal" of the fantasy. "It is an exotic, original play that Miss Millay has written, and she has succeeded in doing what she evidently wanted to do."
S150. "Thirty-Five Years of Continuous Publication: Some of the Highlights." Poetry 71 (Oct. 1947): 31-37.
Chronology and photos of poets published in Poetry. M's work is included among the highlights.
S151. Thorp, Willard. "American Writers on the Left." Socialism and American Life. Ed. Donald Drew Egbert and Stow Persons. Princeton Studies in American Civilization. No. 4. Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1952. 599-620.
Briefly mentions M as a bohemian drawn to the political left and as one who published in the New Masses between March 1936 and February 1937, when feelings about the political future of Spain were fervid.
S152. Tietjens, Eunice. The World at My Shoulder. New York: Macmillan, 1938.
Describes Tietjens' efforts to have M's poetry included in Harriet Monroe's anthology The New Poetry.
S153. Tucker, S[amuel] Marion. "Edna St. Vincent Millay and 'The King's Henchman.'" Modern American and British Plays. Ed. A. H. Quinn. Plays and Playwright Ser. New York: Harper, 1931. 383.
Anthology of plays. Introduction to KH says it is a fine example of "highly-wrought poetic drama." Written as a book, KH can stand alone without music although as an opera it was "one of the significant events in the history of American music." Some discussion of style and substance.
S154. U[ntermeyer], L[ouis]. "'Three Best.'" Liberator 1 (Apr. 1918): 43.
Names RN as one of three best volumes of American poetry published in 1917.
S155. Vale, Charles. "The Lyric Year." Forum 49 (Jan. 1913): 91-106.
Lengthy, effusive review of The Lyric Year. "Renascence" is not the best poem in the book but it is the "most notable." Its defect is a "superficial crudity" of theme. Yet "it is a remarkable production for a girl of twenty,--remarkable for its freshness, its spirituality, its renunciation of artifice, and its unmistakable power."
S156. Waggoner, Hyatt H. "Edna St. Vincent Millay." American Poets: From the Puritans to the Present. Boston: Houghton, 1968. 464-68.
Relates M's search for the reason for her declining fame and her concern at being awarded Pulitzer Prize only once. M blames her sexual and political activities. But she should have realized that she never again wrote so well as in "Renascence." It is a mystical poem like Whitman's "Song of Myself." Perhaps Vassar and Greenwich Village "undid her" causing her to distrust the truth of her own experience.
S157. Walker, Cheryl. "The Women's Tradition in American Poetry." Diss. Brandeis U, 1973. DAI-A 34/07 (1973): 4295.
Examines the mainstream of American women's poetry "in order to establish the existence of a women's tradition." This poetry is "introspective, ambivalent, renunciatory, and controlled." It is seen as "coming directly out of the lives of these women." M's "ambivalence" discussed in a chapter devoted to her. Other poets include Dickinson, H. H. Jackson, Guiney, Reeses, Wylie, Bogan, and Plath. Also includes Anne Bradstreet and several contemporary women poets.
S158. Ware, Caroline Farrar. Greenwich Village: 1920-1930: A Comment on American Civilization in the Post-War Years. New York: Harper, 1965.
Names M and Dreiser as persons of "real talent" who were identified with the Village.
S159. White, Hilda. "Edna St. Vincent Millay." Truth Is My Country: Portaits of Eight New England Authors. Garden City: Doubleday, 1971. 207-35.
Classical education at Vassar was a "boon and a deterrent." M was not a bohemian or a faddist but a perfectionist and a conservative whose first concern was truth. Stresses personal cost of writing her wartime poems. In later years she was "a romanticist turned realist," beaten down by time.
S160. Williams, William Carlos. The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams. New York: Random House, 1951.
Mentions M in pre-WWI New York. Notes erroneously that M jointly won the first Lyric Year award with Orrick Johns.Indicates a falling out with Alfred Kreymborg when Kreymborg lost the manuscript of Williams' verse play The Old Apple Tree and then, with M, produced M's play AC with the Provincetown Players.
S161. "The World and the Theatre; The Radio, the Poet and the News--The Moon Is Down Once Again." Theatre Arts 26 (Dec. 1942): 733-34.
Half the article praises ML as a successful broadcast drama. Cites emotional impact on audience created by poem's theme. Compares radio drama to the movies. Judges printed version of ML as different from broadcast version.
S162. Wright, Cuthbert. "Charles Baudelaire's Poems in English Dress." New York Times Book Review 3 May 1936: 4 ff.
Translation of Fleurs du Mal by M and George Dillon is termed "incomparable." Quotes laudatory commendation from Paul Valery. Mostly concerned with the character of Baudelaire himself.<>S163. Wright, Wynn. "Production Note." Adventure in Radio. Ed. Margaret Cuthbert. N. p.: Howell, 1945. 237-38.
Introduction to the script of ML. Cites "grandeur and pity" of great poetry such as this. Brief references to production and casting goals.
S164. Yost, Karl. A Bibliography of the Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Franklin, 1968.
Reprinted from 1937 edition. Comprehensive listing of all appearances of M's work to 1936.
S165. Young, Arthur Henry. Art Young; His Life and Times. Ed. John Nicholas Beffel. New York: Sheridan, 1939.
Autobiography of Art Young, artist for The Masses. Says he recalls seeing M in court during the Masses trial.
© 1996 Judith Nierman and John J. Patton
Go to the introduction.
Go to the bibliography.