How would you define the essence of poetry? Communication of the heart and emotions? A remedy to soothe the inner yearning that beauty creates? What is your definition? Why do many creative people, like Edna St. Vincent Millay, need to be either in the depths or the heights of emotion in order to create? Do you believe that an artist is molded by her environment and that "very few artists in any genre actually fit into their society because they have to see things in a different way?" What IS creativity?
Nancy Milford, states that "hardship can as easily crush a child as fire her ambition." The first few chapters of Savage Beauty give us a glimpse into the foundation - the flame - that sparked ESVM's creativity and bohemian style of life and on the great influence her mother, Cora, exerted on her life.
Was "hardship" the clay upon which ESVM was modeled? Do you believe that creativity may be an innate characteristic in the genes? How much of her mother's influence or the loneliness of her youth contributed toward ESVM's prodigious output of poetry and prose? Was Cora's strange parenting the crucible that honed ESVM's artistic capabilities? Did ESVM became overly needy for her mother's approval? Would you describe their mother/daughter relationship as one of love/hate? Why?
During her childhood, ESVM's poetry submissions to magazines were always signed E. Vincent Millay. This signature had NO indicated gender, but carried the implication of masculinity in the male-dominated world of the early 1900's. What might be the benefit of such a signature in the "man's world" of the 1900's? Conversely, after she turned 18, ESVM often enclosed a photo of herself with her submissions? Can you think of any beneficial reason for this?
"I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk
between me and the crying of the frogs?
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
That am a timid woman, on her way
From one house to another!"...........ESVM
Does it seem that St. Vincent Millay protests the assault that her own reactions to beauty make upon her soul? Does she need a buffer zone to stand between her own chaotic responses to beauty and the impact of her emotions? ..."Oh, Savage Beauty, suffer me to pass, that am a timid woman..." Is she is caught between the contradictions of her poetic genius and her need for a quieter pathway of life?
Can you think of more than one layer of meaning for the phrase "Savage Beauty" in the personality and writings of ESVM? Why do you think the author chose that as the title of the book?
Was it at Vassar, where she had a larger stage on which to exert her seductive powers of charisma, that ESVM's personality began to solidify? What would have impelled her romances with other girls? As a senior, ESVM flouted the rules of Vassar often. Do you agree with this analysis that her sister, Norma, made about Edna's personality? "It is not part of the genius which prompts these things in her; it is BECAUSE of the genius that she DARES do everything she pleases."
Cora, visiting ESVM in Paris, is frantic over her daughter's relentless promiscuity and poor choice of lovers. Do you believe that Edna could have written poems without these love affairs? Do you see a circular pattern to ESVM's bohemian lifestyle? Did fame produce a need to live up to her liberated public persona? Would Edna have been as interesting to the public without scandalous affairs?
Nancy Milford uses the term "deadly devotion" to describe the relationship between ESVM and her mother. Keeping that term in mind, how do you evaluate the impact of Millay's Pulitzer Prize winning poem, "The Harp Weaver"?
How do you regard the relationship between Edna and her husband, Eugen? What were some of the elements that made it work?
ESVM fought a gallant battle against the downward spiral of illness, drugs and alcohol. What physical or emotional connections do you see, if any, between her illnesses and her addictions?
Is there something in the creative mind that always makes a concept more beautiful and elusive than an actual finished work? Can an artist of any sort truly hope to duplicate the original theme seen in the mind's eye, so that the final creation justifies the dream in every way?
Did the body of her work actually live up to Edna's own expectations? What enables an artist such as she to see the world in a more vivid context than most of the rest of us?
