Renascence, and Other Poems

About

Millay's debut collection (1917), anchored by the extraordinary title poem she wrote at nineteen, established her as the defining voice of American lyric poetry in the 1920s. 'Renascence' itself — a poem about mystical dissolution and re-embodiment — is among the most ambitious first poems in American literary history. The collection also includes early sonnets and lyrics that demonstrate the classical formalism Millay brought to distinctly modern subjects: love's transience, female desire, and the terror and beauty of consciousness. Her sonnets in particular reward reading aloud for their formal brilliance.