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Sonnet 29 Edna St Vincent Millay

Sonnet 29 Edna St Vincent Millay. Background. Edna St Vincent Millay was born in 1892 in Maine in the USA. She relished the sonnet form partly because she felt that the form enabled the poet to challenge her readers' preconceptions about life.

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Sonnet 29 Edna St Vincent Millay

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  1. Sonnet 29 Edna St Vincent Millay

  2. Background • Edna St Vincent Millay was born in 1892 in Maine in the USA. • She relished the sonnet form partly because she felt that the form enabled the poet to challenge her readers' preconceptions about life. • Most of her sonnets are about love and many show how much she admired Shakespeare.

  3. Tone • How might you describe the tone of the first six lines? • How does this change in the next two lines? • How would you describe the tone of the final eight lines?

  4. Imagery • Identify an example of personification in the first two lines – what effect is created by this? • What “beauties” have passed away from “field and thicket”? • What does the “moon” symbolise? • Comment on the use of the words ‘waning’ and ‘ebbing’. How are they significant?

  5. Imagery • What is the connection between the “ebbing tide” and “man’s desire”? • What does the metaphor of the “wide blossom” communicate to you? • Comment on the use of the verbs ‘assails’, ‘shifting’ and ‘strewing’. How are they effective? • The tide is a recurring motif in the poem – what is its symbolic significance in the poem?

  6. Imagery—Final two lines • Consider how the first words of the couplet link in with the rest of the poem, and what the first line of the couplet suggests about the poet’s past experience. • discuss the meaning of the antithesis of heart is slow and swift mind in the last two lines, and the effect of presenting it as she does.

  7. Form • The sonnet form is the Shakespearian (or English) form with four quatrains and a rhyming couplet at the end. • Look at the first 6 lines, examining the structure and rhyming of those lines. • Consider how the repetition of the words 'Pity me' affects the structure of the verse • How does the writer signal that we are about to start a new phase in the final eight lines? • Comment on the use of punctuation.

  8. Feeling • Consider which of these words seems to best describe the poet’s view of Love. cynical resigned realistic hopeful self-pitying • Explain your views

  9. Homework • Compare and contrast the views of Love presented in Sonnet 43 and Sonnet 29. • Spend 10 minutes planning and 35 minutes writing.

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