Words and music …

…Finding music in the life and letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay | OUPblog. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Edna’s poetic writing style was fairly formal in that she followed the form, rhyme, and meter of traditional sonnets. However, she harnessed the strength of that tradition and used it as a scaffold on which to explore and challenge societal perceptions of women, feminism, and sexuality. It was in researching her poetry that I stumbled across her letters. In the, now sadly out of print, book, The Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay, you can read all about her love of music, her thoughts on politics and sexuality, and about her relationships. Her literary genius has always been rather overshadowed by the stories of her “risqué” personal life, but rather than setting her poems, I found myself drawn to the content of these letters, the writing style of which were far more modern and less rhythmically confining.