Not In A Silver Casket Cool With Pearls

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1931

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context

Edna St. Vincent Millay packed performance venues for readings of, most often, her sonnets, which weaved a progressive feminine sexuality with classic allusions and formal poetic meter. She did not write sonnets exclusively, but it is the form for which she is best known. Her biographical page on the Poetry Foundation states that, like fellow poet Robert Frost, “Millay was one of the most skillful writers of sonnets in the twentieth century, and… was able to combine modernist attitudes with traditional forms creating a unique American poetry.”

Her choice to write in a fixed form provided sharp contrast to the modernist free verse of contemporary poets such as Hilda Doolittle (aka, H.D.), Marianne Moore, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and Gertrude Stein. Millay’s sonnets, while modern in their sensibility and perspective, adhered more closely to the public expectation of how poetry should sound, which is to say, rhymed and metered. Also, she constructed a kind of bridge in which the lofty or high-toned diction of the poetry of the previous century shared space with Millay’s modern wit and feminist ideals.

Though published in 1931, the poem “Not In A Silver Casket Cool With Pearls” is part of Millay’s body of work that represents what people refer to as the Roaring Twenties, a post-war new age in which women could move more freely in the world as sexual and intellectual beings, without being defined or restricted by traditional roles. Many factors, according to her biographers and critics, contributed to Millay’s waning popularity as a poet, not the least of which was the critical and popular perception of her work. For decades, critics (who were mostly, though not exclusively, male) dismissed her work as glib, too accessible, or just plain too old-fashioned. It wasn’t until several decades after her death that her poems, and especially her sonnets, were again appreciated for both her expertise with traditional form and her progressive message.

Socio-Cultural Context

Arguably one of the most popular—and assuredly one of the most financially successful—poets of her day, Edna St. Vincent Millay came of age in the Roaring Twenties and, for a time, became the poster poet for sexual freedom and the Bohemian artistic lifestyle. Part of her success (though both her popularity and financial stability would eventually topple), was a fierce work ethic, likely derived from her unconventional upbringing. Millay was the eldest of three daughters. Their mother divorced their father when the girls were young and made a living as a travelling nurse. Millay took on the household responsibilities. Millay experienced their poverty acutely but at the same time was completely supported in her creativity and artistic pursuits, and not bound or hindered by traditional notions of the female role in society. When Millay was given the opportunity to attend Vassar at age 20, she stepped into a privileged society that was very receptive to her talent and charm and less tolerant of what was considered her wild and unseemly behavior.

After leaving Vassar, Millay lived in Greenwich Village, already infamous as an artist colony where the rules didn’t apply, especially when it came to sex. The era between World War I and World War II, prior to the Great Depression, was marked by post-war prosperity and wild good times, despite (and perhaps fueled by) Prohibition, or the law that outlawed the sale of alcohol. The country was becoming more urban than rural, with more people living in the cities. Women could vote as of 1920 but not Black women in the South, due to Jim Crow laws. The so-called New Woman could drink and smoke and have sex with people other than her husband, although how many women actually practiced these freedoms is questionable. In essence, the twenties were a time of social conflict, when “traditional” values clashed with progressive ideals. Millay’s sonnets eschewed values such as sexual fidelity and struck a note with many of the women of her day. At the same time, Millay employed formal constraints and old-style diction that recalled the romantic poetry of a previous era. The spirit of the moment is encapsuled in the line from “First Fig”: “My candle burns at both ends;” the poet walked a tightrope over the roaring post-war terrain, with an eye over her shoulder toward the literary legacies of previous centuries.