Backgrounds of Poets

A poet's bringing, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender can all influence the content and tone his or her literary works. By understanding more about a poet's life, one can further analyze the significance and central messages of the poet. A prime example of the influence of a poet's life on her works is the American poet and playwright, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Millay was born in Maine in 1892. In her upbringing, Edna's mother encouraged female ambition and independence and emphasized a deep appreciation for art, music, and literature. Later in her life, influenced by her mother's insistence of the importance of literature, Millay moved to Greenwich Village in New York City where she spent her days writing poetry, desperately trying to be published. While in New York, however, many men tried to persuade her into marriage despite her open bisexuality. After her refusal of marriage, Millay published her controversial volume of poetry, A Few Figs From Thistles, discussing feminism, female sexuality, and independence of women in the modern world. There is no doubt that Edna St. Vincent Millay's liberal upbringing influenced her sexually-expressive and controversial poems about feminism.