Gender and Genre in Millay’s Sonnets by Debra Fried

Gender and Genre in Millay’s Sonnets by Debra Fried seeks to criticize the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay’s decision to use the sonnet genre of poetry to proclaim women freedom. The author acknowledges the tough nature in which Millay poetry address the societal issues of sex, betrayal, and feminism that women have been compelled to submit to. However, Debra seems to disagree with Millay's choice of the sonnet by claiming that it's the same genre that has caged the women's voices and allowed men dominance to go unchallenged.

Hence, according to the author, a woman writing sonnets in the twentieth century when people are seeking modernism is an “act of embarrassment” (Fried 1). The article puts down justification of the author's reason for disagreement through examples. However, Millay's poems demonstrate a contrary disposition to Fried’s article argument.
The sonnet genre puts the female poet Millay on formal restrictions, which serves more as an act of silencing her voice than acting as women themes or mouthpiece representation.

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Debra Fried's article uses a reflection from two essays analysis on Millay poetry by Jane Stanbrough to illustrate Millay as a retrograde.

Stanbrough points out that Millay using sonnet shows how she uses her imaginative work to justify “her constant struggle against boundaries” (2) and also explains her understanding that “freedom is also qualified by the sense of restriction” (2). The article to demonstrate its concern of Millay as a person, who opposes social reforms by restricting herself to a traditional and formal way of lyrical writing, disregards Stanbrough claims.

Fried opposes Jane Stanbrough's analysis of Millay poetry as a perfect vessel that conveys the message of women's victimization; instead, she (the author Debra Fried) claims that the analysis contains assumptions that need considerable examination. According to Fried, Millay, working within traditional restrictions of poetic forms isolates “the pitch, density, and strength to – a poet's voice” (2) should have, especially one majoring on women's liberation.

The article explains that Millay's use of sonnet cannot seek the same freedom the male poet tries to seek by using the genre. Fried uses an illustration from the Elizabethan study of Millay sonnets, where she argues against Judith Farr's claim that Millay disciplines her imagination through the restrictive sonnet genre and manages to achieve the emotional scope she needs her poetry to possess. Fried disregards the Farr's argument by saying that Millay's use of the traditionally male predominated genre is more of a way agreeing to be commanded than of taking over command. According to Fried, Millay matched her poetic needs with the genre for a similar claim as the male poet Wordsworth's that sonnet relief's one from excessive liberty. Wordsworth explains the reason to use sonnet as a demonstration of less freedom giver since, to him, too much freedom can be "dangerous." However, Fried explains that Millay, as a woman poet, her poetry cannot have the same mobility and independence as Wordsworth poetry. Therefore, Millay using sonnet, does not give either her or the other women she seeks to represent the same freedom it provides the male poets. Using the genre does not mean she is earning the female gender useful liberty.

The article critics Millay's choice of the sonnet genre based on its original boundaries but neglects to see how she uses it to make a difference in the traditional constructed society. Millay used sonnet, a poetic form famously known for its restrictiveness to discourage societal bondage. The male poets use this poetic form to illustrate women as sexual objects whom they can rule over their lives and bodies. The contradiction is that Millay uses a poetically limiting male-dominated genre to demonstrate that she wishes to break both societal gender limitations as well as literary constraints. For instance, in her poem “I being a woman, and distressed," Millay explains that women should have the power to engage in impermanent love and not always stick to the eternal love that men want. The male poets write to show a woman is expected to be angelic ideals ready to satisfy men's needs without questioning the commitment of sexual relationships or giving an opinion. In Millay's form of expressing the genre and associating it with women's freedom, she talks to the male. She tells him not to "think" that I shall remember you with love (Millay lns.9, 11), which explains that her desire to the male lover is impermanent, and he should not think otherwise. Millay continues by saying that the desire is just a "temporary frenzy" and insufficient reason for them to have even to have "conversation when they meet again" (lns.13-14). Through her poem, Millay encourages women to take up control over romantic relationship direction and not to accept anything that males have predominately designed.

Through sonnets, Millay presents a fundamentally modern perspective on relationships. Contrary to the article that Millay seeks the same level of liberty as Wordsworth male poet does, Millay brings her female version of freedom through the restricted sonnet poetic form. She redesigns the males' idealized women viewed as a possession to the self-centered man to a modern revamped woman aware of herself and fearlessly ready to show sexual independence. For instance, in her poem "I being born a woman and distressed," she addresses the male lover and tells him that she will choose whether to remember him "with love or season" (lns. 11).

In conclusion, the article Andromeda unbound: Gender and Genre in Millay's sonnets by Debra Fried seeks to criticize the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay's decision to use the sonnet genre of poetry to proclaim women freedom. According to Fried, a woman writing sonnets in the twentieth century when people are seeking modernism is an act of embarrassment. However, Millay's poems demonstrate a contrary disposition to Fried's article argument. The article claims that the sonnet genre puts the female poet Millay on formal restrictions, which serves more as an act of silencing her voice than acting as women themes or mouthpiece representation. The article explains that Millay’s use of sonnet cannot seek the same freedom the male poet tries to seek by using the genre. The article critics Millay's choice of the sonnet genre based on its original boundaries but neglects to see how she uses it to make a difference in the traditional constructed society.