Essay #2 “I will put Chaos into fourteen lines”

Eng 2003                                             Prof J Rosen                                                   Essay#2

“I will put Chaos into fourteen lines”

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Definitions:

Amorphous – “Lacking definite form; shapeless” or “Lacking organization; formless”

Duress – “Constraint by threat; coercion”

Servitude – “A state of subjection to an owner or master” or “Lack of personal freedom, as to act as one chooses”

Annotation:

1)      Edna St. Vincent Millay

Born and raised in Rockland Maine on February 22, 1892 was Edna St. Vincent Millay.  Millay was raised by a single mother who supported both her and her siblings through work as a practical nurse.  She began her journey in the poetry word at the age of nineteen after the publication of one of her most famous poems, Renascence.   Millay’s first book of published poetry “Renascence and Other Poems” was published in 1917 when she was just twenty-five years of age.   Over the course of her life, Millay not only published poetry, but she wrote plays, political writings and a libretto composed for an opera.  She was honored for her work with the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.

Millay attended Vassar College, where it was said she engaged in several intimate relationships with quite a few women.  Upon her graduation, Millay wrote her first verse play, “The Lamp and the Bell”, a piece about love between women.  Millay moved to New York in the Greenwich Village in the fall of 1917 shortly after her graduation.  She engaged in a love affair with Floyd Dell, and several different men, but shortly after, her relationship with Dell fell apart.

In the early 1920’s Millay spent much of her time developing her poetic works which by 1923 led to the publication of four volumes.   Her work “A Few Figs from Thistles” caused a stir amongst her critics because unlike her earlier pieces, which promoted elevation of the soul and images of God and love, this piece promoted chaos amongst youth and rebelliousness.  As The Norton Anthology of American Literature states, “Millay achieved notoriety mainly for love poetry that described free, guiltless sexuality, her poems are more founded in the failure of love … Working with closed stanza forms and regular metrical lines, she displayed a high degree of technical virtuosity within quite deliberately chosen limits.”

An Explication of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I will put Chaos into fourteen lines”

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “I will put Chaos into fourteen lines” is a poem that carries a very dark and disparaging tone.  Possibly it is the voice of a woman who has been involved in a very chaotic and hurtful relationship and seeks to gain some control over this chaotic being.  Millay’s use of the Petrarchan sonnet allows the poem to be dissected into two parts where the first, the octave, carrying a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA asks the question or addresses a problem; and the sestet, with a rhyme scheme of CDCDCD, proposes an answer or resolution to the problem at hand.    Her use of the Petrarchan sonnet may have been very clever on her part as this type of sonnet is known for its set number of lines and syllables and is somewhat restrictive in terms of its closed stanza form, hence signifying the reason for wanting to restrict Chaos to just fourteen lines.

The first line of the poem opens with the main metaphor “I will put Chaos into fourteen lines” with an emphasis placed on the word Chaos.  Millay deliberately capitalizes “Chaos” possibly to suggest to her readers that it is significant in some way.  Significant in the fact that it is given humanlike qualities as she refers to it as “him”, as supported in line 2 of the poem, “And keeps him there; and let him thence escape.”  Millay uses “14 lines” as a comparison to some type of imprisonment, possibly jail to further arouse imagery in the minds of her readers.

The image of Chaos possibly being a man is further upheld in line 3 as Millay’s use of language continues to paint a picture of a man desperate for freedom.  Her use of action words describes his attempt to escape from captivity as he is said to twist and ape about, as seen here “If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape.”  Oddly Millay uses the word “ape” as an action word probably to evoke the image of a caged, wild primate frantic for freedom as Chaos continues his fight to be free. Also, a negative connotation to the word ape is sometimes used to infer stupidity, slow to learn and lack of intelligence amongst humans – hence the reason why women may refer to men as animals and why Millay chose to use this term to describe his actions.  Millay continues her use of negative undertones as she equates Chaos to a “flood”, “fire” and “demon” all of which causes destruction or disarray in some way.  These are all qualities or traits of Chaos’s personality and she wishes to gain control of this by placing him into imprisonment before he hurts another.   Millay’s reference to these qualities as seen in line 4, “Flood, fire, and demon- his adroit designs”, may have been used to signify his cleverness and his tactful ways of handling certain situations when under pressing conditions.

Although Chaos continues to fight his internment, his efforts have become futile because he is now totally restrained as demonstrated in lines 5 and 6, “will strain to nothing in the strict confines| Of this sweet order, where, pious rape.”  Millay depicts this submission by using the word “order” as she has gained full control of Chaos because he is no longer such, now he is “sweet order”.  Millay’s reference to Chaos as “Order” prepares her readers for the transition into the second part of the poem, where she will move from addressing the problem, to resolving it.  The use of the term “pious rape” in line 6 presents an oxymoron, as the word “pious” implies a religious connotation whereas the word “rape” suggests a violent or malicious act.  She uses this possibly to convey the idea that the speaker may have been falsely lead during the course of the relationship by a man she once trusted and held in a high regard, thus adding to the dramatic effect and addressing the feelings of betrayal in the minds of her readers.

Chaos is no longer chaotic and for a second based on the word “amorphous” in line 7, appears to have no “order” as well, “I hold his essence and amorphous shape.”  Millay’s use of the words “I hold”, “his essence”, “amorphous shape” gives her readers the sense that the speaker has now gained full control and is almost as powerful as God.  She has the power to shape and mold him, just as God molded us from dirt, into whatever she pleases, and in this case, she will mold him into Order.  Line 8 continues to show this power and her control over his free will as she states “Till he with Order mingles and combines” (Millay, 2010).

Millay introduces her readers to the second part of her sonnet with line 9 as she states, “Past are the hours, the years of our duress.”   Millay deliberately choses to begin the sestet with this line to show her readers that the first eight lines, the octave, was a representation of the eight years the speaker spent with Chaos.  Millay continues her use of negative language such as duress, arrogance, awful and servitude throughout line 10 to further convince her readers and even the speaker herself the need to control and bring order to Chaos.

In lines 11 and 12, Millay continues to use phrases to debase the character of Chaos as her word content contains notions of power, as she states with exclamation, “I have him. He is nothing more nothing less| Than something simple not yet understood.”  She appears to find some pleasure in Chaos’s Order as the tone she uses shifts from an angry, desperate for control, woman to a smiling, contented and victorious one.  Lines 13 and 14 continues to depict and support this, “I shall not even force him to confess| Or answer. I will only make him good.” Millay uses this shift in tone not only to show her speaker’s change in attitude but also to indicate that the speaker has almost accomplished her goal and that is to make him, “Chaos” good.

Works Cited

Baym, Nina, Wayne Franklin, and Robert S. Levine. “Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892-1850.”The Norton Anthology of American Literature. D,. 7th ed. Vol. D. New York [u.a.: Norton, 2007. 1803-804. Print.

Carl Van Vechten , . “Edna St. Vincent Millay.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, 2012. Web. 11 May 2012. <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/160>.

Edna St. Vincent Millay Biography. A E Television Networks.LLC., 1996. Web. 11 May 2012. <http://www.biography.com/people/edna-st-vincent-millay-9408293>.

“Edna St. Vincent Millay Biography.” Encyclopedia ofWorld Biography. Advameg, Inc., 2011. Web. 11 May 2012. <http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ma-Mo/Millay-Edna-St-Vincent.html>.

“Edna St.Vincent Millay.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 2011. Web. 11 May 2012. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/edna-st-vincent-millay>.

Merriman, C.D.. “Edna St. Vincent Millay Poems .” The Literature Network. Jalic Inc., 2007. Web. 11 May 2012. <http://www.online-literature.com/millay/>.

“Milla’ys Life.” Millay the Poet. The Edna St. Vincent Millay Society, 2011. Web. 11 May 2012. <http://www.millay.org/millays-life/>.