Sonnet 29 – EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

·         What do you think makes this sonnet so sad? Support your ideas with details from the poet´s words.

The sonnet is about a woman that doesn’t want people to feel pity of her because time is passing by and things that happen to everybody in life are happening to her. This shows that the woman refuses to accept the reality of the situation, “Pity me not” meaning that she doesn’t want readers to feel bad for her.

The woman feels that as she is getting older and doesn’t take care of herself anymore “Pity me not for beauties passed away”, her husband is not attracted to her or doesn’t love her in the same way anymore. This is shown when the writer says “Nor that a man’s desire is hushed so soon”. The way in which she expresses is sad.

The woman feels like the happiness that the light of day brings is not worth it and she thinks that death will arrive someday somehow.

The way in which the writer expresses and prevents people from pitying her is a soothing sad manner. Although she doesn’t want people to feel the pain that she feels, her sadness is evidently shown.

The writer compares the things that are happening in her life with other ordinary things that happen in life, for example, she says that the ending of her lover’s love is as natural as the sun light ending at the end of the day. She seems to say that it was known by her that the love she and her lover once shared would end in some way. But in the short run, she begins to feel slightly angry and depressed and this is shown in a change of tone beginning in line 12 “Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales…” which is destructive and more chaotic.

In the last two lines, it is told “Pity me that the heart is slow to learn, When the swift mind beholds at every turn.” Here the writer talks about a different pity. She wants one to pity her not for her pain but for her being naïve towards something she clearly knew was going to happen. She also feels sad for herself because she didn’t react to something she knew was going to happen.

The conclusion of the poem is that everything in nature finishes or disappears at one point but that it always ends somewhere to start somewhere else. 

Camila Pellegrini, Lucía Neira, Martina Cervi