In the poem Recuerdo, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, New York takes the backseat. Unlike many NYC based poems, the primary focus of this poem is not on the city itself, but on the people. Recuerdo focuses on the mind of one person, who, like the title implies, is trying to remember. Despite being drunk, her few hazy memories suggest a happy night spent with a lover, adventuring around the city. The poem is vague and fast-paced, intentionally replicating the state of the speaker’s mind, but the speaker is trying to fight the mental fog, trying to remember. Millay combines repetition, structure, and alliteration in Recuerdo to describe a night in New York, and to show the process of trying to recall those barely remembered activities.
Repetition is integral to Recuerdo. In the poem, Millay starts each stanza with the lines, “We were very tired, we were very merry — We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.” Given the brevity of the poem, only eighteen lines long, these lines must be particularly important for Millay to choose to repeat them every stanza. Just glancing at the poem, the repetition seems to detract from possible content, but in reality it deepens its meaning by drawing the readers
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That flow further facilitates the fog that befalls the mind of the speaker in the poem. The alliteration connects the stanzas together, but the shortness of the alliterative passages keeps the events distinct, separating them out and creating a timeline to aid in remembering. The “bare and bright” ferry blends into the stanza, connected by the alliterative verbs “looked… leaned…[and] lay.” In the next stanza the phrases “ate an apple,” “went wan,” and “came cold” add a pulse to the verses. The alliteration concludes in the last stanza with “Good marrow, mother,” almost as if the alliteration ends as the morning begins; chronicling the night to preserve the remaining
The alliteration used is to emphasize rhythm in the poem. On the other hand, the poet also depicts a certain rhyme scheme across each stanza. For example, the first stanza has a rhyme scheme of this manner a, b, c, d, e, a. With this, the rhyme scheme depicted is an irregular manner. Hence, the poem does not have a regular rhythm. Moreover, the poet uses a specific deign of consonance, which is present in the poem (Ahmed & Ayesha, p. 11). The poet also uses the assonance style depicted in the seventh stanza, “Seven whole days I have not seen my beloved.” The letter ‘o’ has been repeated to create rhythm and to show despair in the poem. On the second last line of the seventh stanza, the poet uses the style of consonance, “If I hug her, she’ll drive illness from me. By this, the letter ‘l’ is repeated across the line. The poet’s aim of using this style of Consonance is to establish rhythm in the poem and add aural
First of alll, the poem is divided into nine stanzas, where each one has four lines. In addition to that, one can spot a few enjambements for instance (l.9-10). This stylistic device has the function to support the flow of the poem. Furthermore, it is crucial to take a look at the choice of words, when analysing the language.
Born in Rockland, Maine in the year 1892 Edna St. Vincent Millay was the daughter of Cora Buzzelle Millay and Henry Tolman Millay. Millays parents divorced when she was 8 and she was raised by her mother who inspired many of her works. Millay was a very independent child and published poetry by the time she was a teen. Millay had gained recognition as a poet and writer by her mid-twenties. She wrote poems about love, sorrow, death, and everlasting nature. Millay also completed many plays and short fiction works underneath the name Nancy Boyd. As Millay got older she married a man named Eugene Jan Boissevain in 1923. She had devoted a sonnet in memory of his first wife who was also an idol of Millays. Millay had an open marriage and many sexual partners.
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
Not only the words, but the figures of speech and other such elements are important to analyzing the poem. Alliteration is seen throughout the entire poem, as in lines one through four, and seven through eight. The alliteration in one through four (whisky, waltzing, was) flows nicely, contrasting to the negativity of the first stanza, while seven through eight (countenance, could) sound unpleasing to the ear, emphasizing the mother’s disapproval. The imagery of the father beating time on the child’s head with his palm sounds harmful, as well as the image of the father’s bruised hands holding the child’s wrists. It portrays the dad as having an ultimate power over the child, instead of holding his hands, he grabs his wrists.
From the combination of enjambed and end-stopped lines, the reader almost physically feels the emphasis on certain lines, but also feels confusion where a line does not end. Although the poem lacks a rhyme scheme, lines like “…not long after the disaster / as our train was passing Astor” and “…my eyes and ears…I couldn't think or hear,” display internal rhyme. The tone of the narrator changes multiple times throughout the poem. It begins with a seemingly sad train ride, but quickly escalates when “a girl came flying down the aisle.” During the grand entrance, imagery helps show the importance of the girl and how her visit took place in a short period of time. After the girl’s entrance, the narrator describes the girl as a “spector,” or ghost-like figure in a calm, but confused tone. The turning point of the poem occurs when the girl “stopped for me [the narrator]” and then “we [the girl and the narrator] dove under the river.” The narrator speaks in a fast, hectic tone because the girl “squeez[ed] till the birds began to stir” and causes her to not “think or hear / or breathe or see.” Then, the tone dramatically changes, and becomes calm when the narrator says, “so silently I thanked her,” showing the moment of
In the poem The Courage That My Mother Had by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the speaker explains the admiration he/she had for his/her mother’s courage. The author integrates strong imagery in order to fully explain the message that the speaker is trying to get across to the reader. In the first stanza, the speaker describes his/her’s mother as a “Rock from [the] New England quarried,” and later uses the same idea of a rock to describe the courage his/her mother possesses. What can be understood from the repetition of the image of a rock, is that the mother figure is as strong as the courage inside her. Another way we can see that the speaker truly loves their mother’s courage, is the fact that although he/she received a golden brooch that had previously
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
Edna St. Vincent Millay has created complex as well as emotionally and politically charged poetry in her career. Her poetry is often considered expressive yet also indifferent by some critics. Yet, her skill with metaphor and other evocative poetic features bring us poems that are reflective of her self, and also ourselves as readers. By developing skilled metaphors for interpreting and developing her own identity as an author and for us as a reader, we are given a construction of selfhood. In this essay, I will analyze Edna St. Vincent Millay’s two poems; If I should learn, in some quite casual way, and What lips my lips have kissed in order to explain the meaning and presence of selfhood in lyric poetry. Through interpreting Millay’s poems, I will explain the construction of selfhood or identity in each poem through formal structures. Understanding selfhood comes with understanding one’s surroundings and how we are able to relate or compare ourselves to these surroundings. Edna St. Vincent Millay does a very complete job of bringing metaphor, narrative, diction and imagery to h...
In this book, the audience follows a Victorian Era New Orleans resident, Edna. Nevertheless, throughout the story we see that Edna is struggling between two desires; the desire to be loved and the desire to be free and independent of men. This conflict of desires illuminates the meaning of the work to show that in that time period, a woman’s independence or love both come at a price, and that they were mutually exclusive.
Although this section is the easiest to read, it sets up the action and requires the most "reading between the lines" to follow along with the quick and meaningful happenings. Millay begins her poem by describing, in first person, the limitations of her world as a child. She links herself to these nature images and wonders about what the world is like beyond the islands and mountains. The initial language and writing style hint at a child-like theme used in this section. This device invites the reader to sit back and enjoy the poem without the pressure to understand complex words and structure.
Edgar Allen Poe’s alliteration and repetition of words support the poem’s flow and musicality. Poe begins with the alliteration of the m sound in “merriment” and “melody” (3). The soft m sound, also known as a liquid consonant, helps to keep a quick and continuous pace for the poem. Similarly, the alliteration of the s sounds in sledges, silver, stars, and seem, emphasize the calming sounds of the bells (1-2, 6-7). The s sound helps express the soothing and comforting effects of the bells, essentially contributing to the merry tone of the poem. Furthermore, the alliteration of t...
Repetition is repeating a word or idea over and over again. An example of repetiton in the poem is “And the name died before the man” (20). This quote means that everything that he has worked so hard for is no longer being cared about. Winning the race was now old news as well as his career. No one took any interest in him anymore, so he was already dying in a sense. The athlete’s job was slowly dying and now no one wanted anything to do with him. Another example of repetition is “Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,” and this quote shows that he is now dead and does not have the strength he once had when he was alive (26). Both of these quotes bring up points about his death and how if he would have died when he was younger, his name still would be recognized by
The most obvious use of repetition would be the abundant use of Annabel Lee’s name in the poem. The fact that the title of the poem is Annabel Lee, and her name is repeated so often throughout the poem clearly demonstrates just how important and lovely she is to the narrator. The second most prominent use of repetition comes from the lines regarding the “kingdom by the sea” (Poe). Poe constantly reinforces the setting and reminds the reader of its importance in almost every single stanza until near the end of the
Through alliteration and imagery, Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that become unfixed to the reader. Coleridge uses alliteration throughout the poem, in which the reader “hovers” between imagination and reality. As the reader moves through the poem, they feel as if they are traveling along a river, “five miles meandering with a mazy motion” (25). The words become a symbol of a slow moving river and as the reader travels along the river, they are also traveling through each stanza. This creates a scene that the viewer can turn words into symbols while in reality they are just reading text. Coleridge is also able to illustrate a suspension of the mind through imagery; done so by producing images that are unfixed to the r...