Nancy Milford
Paperback | Pages: 608 pages Rating: 4.01 | 7199 Users | 527 Reviews
Details Books During Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
| Original Title: | Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay |
| ISBN: | 0375760814 (ISBN13: 9780375760815) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Ilustration As Books Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Thomas Hardy once said that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The most famous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay captivated the nation: She smoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment of the New Woman.Thirty years after her landmark biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, Nancy Milford returns with an iconic portrait of this passionate, fearless woman who obsessed America even as she tormented herself.
Chosen by USA Today as one of the top ten books of the year, Savage Beauty is a triumph in the art of biography. Millay was an American original--one of those rare characters, like Sylvia Plath and Ernest Hemingway, whose lives were even more dramatic than their art.
Point Based On Books Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
| Title | : | Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay |
| Author | : | Nancy Milford |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 608 pages |
| Published | : | September 10th 2002 by Random House Trade (first published January 1st 2001) |
| Categories | : | Biography. Nonfiction. Poetry |
Rating Based On Books Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Ratings: 4.01 From 7199 Users | 527 ReviewsAppraise Based On Books Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
I devoured this book and it broke my heart. Three sisters. All so clearly close. And what talent this poet had. The third woman to win the Pulitzer for Poetry. And it also rather bothers me that so few people even know her name among my contemporaries. Read this biography, please!I will admit that I didn't know of Edna St. Vincent Millay before starting on this book and so I greatly enjoyed the introduction to her poetry - certain poems are excerpted at length in this book and I found them to be lovely and insightful. Moreover, the portrait of Edna and her entire family was detailed, layered and complex. In fact, the entire description of Edna's life called out for psychological interpretation at nearly every turn. Although I never felt that I really liked any of the
You may know a few of her poems and have a sense of her public persona. But if you read this book youll feel like you live with her for years. Painstakingly researched, rich and human telling of a life. Youll feel like you lived with her while, maybe, never truly despite reading hundreds of her letters knowing her. Maybe everyone in her life felt that way.
An exquisitely rendered biography of a complex and talented American icon.
This is a remarkable biography, for a multitude of reasons.First, I must admit my own ignorance when it comes to much of Millay's work. I think I was surprised by how well-known she was in her day. I took advanced English courses in high school, studied English quite a bit in college, and yet my knowledge of her was so very limited, and the same went for my English nerd friends who I brought her up to. This either reflects poorly on the school systems, the way that fame of women is regarded, the
Exhaustively researched.
I haven't read a lot of biographies of writers, but this year I read two, and I think I've figured out what the biggest challenge is in documenting the life of a creative person: Most of them don't leave behind much writing about their creative process. As a result, any biography of a writer is going to focus on what can be documentedtheir various relationships, their travels, the awards they've won, bad behavior that others witnessed and never forgot. This is all well and goodafter all, I think
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