[R. S. Gwynn]

I read the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and I am astonished by the level of sexual repression in her poems, which are, of course, a product of a period that tried to deny women's sexuality. Forced by the standards of her times to adopt the role of piety, submission, and restraint, Vincent would doubtless write wonderfully if she enjoyed today's freedoms.

[Erik Olson]

I apologize, I thought you went mad.

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by Daniel Recktenwald

Roger and Aaron, you're making me laugh in spite of myself. What'd Gerry ever do to y'all . . ...?

They're just jealous because he's more Manley than they are.

[Susan McLean]

Erik, I think Sam was being deliberately ironic, and that you should not take his statements at face value.

Susan

[Erik Olson]

Go figure. I was being deliberately obtuse and refuting ironically; I wish. I used to know his shtick but, lapsing, I went thick. Thanks for tossing the life-vest to my sense.

[Daniel Recktenwald]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

They're just jealous because he's more Manley than they are.

Zing!

And Walter's little quatrain bomb upthread reminded me, somehow, of this:

when I was in grad school, a fellow "writer," [and boy, did he look the part, ya know?] sat to smoke with me on campus. He noticed the fat ham of a bio on Dickinson, which I was reading, and he puffed . . .

"But really, what's interesting about her life? I mean, she never really did anything. . . ."

(It would be twenty years before I'd have this "Game of Thrones" reference to avail myself of, but this cretin had no idea that, in that moment, he might as well have been dissing Khaleesi to a drunken Dothraki bloodrider.)

Not that the dude wasn't a smug, boorish jackass to begin with-- he was-- so I wasn't missing out on much, but that moment has become emblematic in my memory for many reasons why I find it difficult to forge friendships with other men.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Eric, your initial response seems to have been changed. Did my comments about Millay somehow upset you? If so, I apologize. Maybe there's more to her than the repressed side I've seen.

Which is not to say that Millay didn't recognize the power of the sexual urge:

"Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare."
BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

Here she seems nostalgic for the age of the ancient Greeks, whose nude statues of gods and goddesses showed "beauty bare" all over the place as statues were quite prominent in that day and age. Euclid, who discovered these statues for the first time, was like Balboa in that Keats ode and must have had a wild surmise. In contrast, during Millay's day you have the gods and goddesses wearing fig leaves and flowing robes because of contemporary prudery. Not so with those Euclid saw. I suspect Millay would like to see them too but the heavy foot, wearing its "massive sandal," is fixing to squash her dreams. In our contemporary life and time we can see alot more "beauty bare" at the swimming pool or even a volleyball game.

[Julie Steiner]

I interpret the sonnet differently than you do, Sam. To me, "beauty bare" and "Euclid" suggest the abstract, mathematical principles of aesthetically pleasing proportions, rather than nude artwork. (I guess Pythagoras, who did more work in the area of mathematical proportion, has too many syllables in his name.) If the poem only refers to nude artwork, why would Euclid have an advantage over any of his contemporaries in antiquity?

I'm also inclined to see the sonnet's narrator as unreliable. Such deference to a coldly intellectual approach to understanding and appreciating beauty seems out of character for Millay. She strikes me as more of a Dionysian figure than an Apollonian one.

I've never gotten the impression that Edna St. Vincent Millay was particularly repressed or convention-bound, even when quite young. Which is not to say that she never had unrequited sexual desires.

[John Isbell]

I think Sam is misdirecting us. Like you, Julie, I feel pretty confident the poem is referring to abstract or mathematical beauty: beauty bare. Which is certainly there in Euclid.

Cheers,
John

[Erik Olson]

Originally Posted by R. S. Gwynn

Eric, your initial response seems to have been changed. Did my comments about Millay somehow upset you? If so, I apologize. Maybe there's more to her than the repressed side I've seen.

I was not upset, but I was nonplussed to read with my own two eyes claims running diametrically opposite to my first notions of Millay’s depiction of sexuality in her poetry, both from my own reading and from all that I have read about the subject. After all, it is she who addressed almighty Sex like a god of worship when societal expectations forbade her to admit interest in sex as a woman, and so on and so forth.

My reading of the sonnet above agrees with Julie, easy. For me, it treats geometrical beauty, for which Euclid is known, rather than nudity in sculptures, for which he is not. Beauty bare is a metaphor for beauty distilled to its purest etherial form, as when Plato lays the truth bare he extracts its essence without nude bodies. The word bare has two definitions

1. (of a person or part of the body) not clothed or covered.
2. without addition; basic and simple.

I find the second congruous for the geometry with which Euclid is synonymous. I likewise find this particular sonnet to be an uncharacteristic one for Edna St. Vincent Millay who, as Julie well observed, is usually more Dionysian than Apollonian. I can never be too sure if you are in earnest or yanking the proverbial chain. If the second, I hold my peace; if the first, I have spoken my piece. The name is with a k by the way.

Cheers,
Erik