Lament

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1923

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Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“Renascence” by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1912)

This 1912 poem is considered one of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s best known and most widely read poems. It is credited as the poem which brought her work to a wider audience. The poem is 200-plus lines and written in the first-person. It portrays a narrator contemplating nature and feeling overwhelmed by nature, human suffering, the deaths of others, and contemplations about the grave. A falling rain reminds the speaker about life’s renewal as well as its beauty. Millay wrote the poem while looking out from Mount Battie in Camden, Maine, where a plaque commemorates the poem.

“An Alexandrite Pendant for My Mother” by Marilyn Hacker (1973)

An award-winning poet who blends high culture with colloquial language, Marilyn Hacker writes formal poems and fits into the poetic tradition along with Robert Lowell and Adrienne Rich. She writes using sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, blank verse, and heroic couplets. “An Alexandrite Pendant for My Mother” conveys a sense of otherness, one that examines the definitions of home as well as the experience of travel and living abroad. It is an existential poem, exploring what it means to live as the other in a place vastly different from the one an individual typically calls home. This poem was included as part of a collection that also dealt with subjects like breast cancer, chemotherapy, and mother-daughter relationships.

“The Chosen Ones” by Pablo Neruda (2000)

Like Millay’s poem, Pablo Neruda’s “The Chosen Ones” addresses personal and societal responses to death. Just as the speaker in “Lament” questions society’s expectation that she and her family move forward from her husband’s death, “The Chosen Ones” questions society’s ability to forget those who died so quickly. The poem also portrays death as the one commonality that everyone shares, regardless of social status, wealth, etc. Neruda’s poem is unique in that readers infer that the speaker is dead. The poem possesses a reminiscent, nostalgic, but bitter and reflective tone. The poem also relies on long and short lines, as well as a variety of punctuations marks such as exclamation points and question mark to create its voice and tone and make the dead speaker more human.

Further Literary Resources

“A Mother’s Struggle to Raise Her Children After the Father’s Death in the Poem ‘Lament’ written by Edna St. Vincent Millay” by Galuh Damayanti Ayuningtyas and Christina Resnitriwati (2013)

In this article, the two authors explore the mother’s struggle to raise the children in Millay’s poem “Lament.” The authors carefully examine the poem’s imagery and figurative language. The study divides the imagery analysis into multiple sections, including auditory imagery, visual imagery, and organic imagery. The article also identifies key sound and meter techniques like repetition and how those techniques move the poem and create voice. At the article’s core, readers find a brief discussion about the role of family and the support system created by family during a time of loss. The article also explores the mother’s strength as she attempts to move forward for not only her sake and her children’s sake, but also in order to fulfill society’s expectations.

“Edna St. Vincent Millay and Anne Sexton: The Disruption of Domestic Bliss” by Artemis Michaildou (2004)

In this article, the author explores the domestic elements of Millay’s poetry despite Millay’s reputation as a non-domestic poet. The article asserts that by the 1970s, the poetry world no longer saw Millay as rebellious. It discusses Millay’s role as an influential member of the Greenwich Village scene in the 1920s and her involvement in—at the time—unconventional sexual practices. Simultaneously, the article explores Sexton’s role in poetry during the 1950s and 1960s. It highlights the political activism of both poets and dissects the role of domesticity in each poet’s work. The article also discusses Sexton’s attitudes towards Sylvia Plath’s work, and it explores Sexton’s struggles with her own originality and Millay’s diminished scholarly esteem.

“Edna St. Vincent Millay” by Edd Winfield Park (1930)

In this article, published during Millay’s lifetime, the author examines Millay as a feminist and as a woman, exploring Millay’s careful insights to life’s problems. The author also examines Millay’s work in correlation to other female poets like Sappho and Christina Rossetti. While the author focuses primarily on Millay’s poetry, they also incorporate a brief discussion about Millay’s role as a playwright. The article discusses the confessional tone apparent in Millay’s poetry, and it also highlights the role of metaphysics and the intensity of emotion present in Millay’s poetry and plays. The article also highlights how, as Millay aged and developed as a person and a poet, historical events influenced her work and she utilized more experimental techniques.