Edna St. Vincent Millays Sonnet I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed E

Edna St. Vincent Millays Sonnet I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed Edna St. Vincent Millays sonnet, I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed, serves as an excellent example of a multi-faceted piece. From one angle, it is simply a Petrarchan sonnet, written with a slight stochastic variable on rhyme scheme but that variation, taken deeper, reveals new layers of meaning. Added to Millays choice of meter and end-stop, along with a background of Millays person, this sonnet seems non so simple after all. Millay, though she married in 1923, was known to have extramarital affairs, purportedly with both(prenominal) women and men. (wikipedia.com) In the context of this particular sonnet, much(prenominal) seems revealing indeed for it seems the speaker of the sonnet is involved in some sort of affair. Or peradventure Millays sonnet is addressed to her husband, for it was published in 1923 however, that seems unlikely, since the sonnet frames a rejection of her lover. More likely, I see it as a final goodbye to her lover before marriage, for she finds this frenzy insufficient reason to gallop seeing him (or her). Though Millay had an open marriage that is, she and her husband consented to each others affairs she likely did not want to begin her marriage with devil lovers. The 1920s was a booming period, and Millay fit in perfectly with her independent demeanor. Women had gotten the right to vote in 1920, and this, I think, furthered Millays interest in independence, and perhaps caused her to think about the traditional roles of women. The typical image of a damsel in distress fit her poorly hers was a more forthright existence. On the outside, however, she was a woman, and was thus restrained by her own appearance much ... ...er skills. This reflects in her poetry particularly I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed. Millay took an establish form, and altered it to fit her meaning even taking its original purpose into consideration to create an iron ic sonnet that broke with the norm. After an analysis of both the technical and social features of this sonnet, its hidden meanings and subtle emotion become readily apparent.Works Cited The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Fifth Edition. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, & Jon Stallworthy. Copyright 2005, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Wikipedia. 21 October 2005. Non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. 31 October 2005. Gale, Robert L. Edna St. Vincent Millays Life. new-fangled American Poetry. Accessed 31 October 2005. (This source was used solely to confirm the information on Wikipedia.)