Edna St. Vincent MillayThe Courage That My Mother Had

By: Jason Gamble

Born and FamilyBorn in 1892 in Rockland, Maine

Cora Buzzelle Millay

Henry Tolman Millay

SchoolingEarned scholarship to Vassar College for writing

Renascene

Kept writing poems at Vassar

Made plays at Vassar

Provided different sources of information (ex. Culture)

RelationshipsIncluded:

Poet Arthur Davison Ficke

Literary critic Edmund Wilson

MarriageIn 1923 in New York, met businessman Eugen

Boissevain at a party

Married later in same year

Respected and supported each others beliefs

InfluenceMom because:

Raised her alone after divorce

Became an independent person

Looked into her interests

How and When She DiedWorking on poetry collection

Fatal Heart Attack

Died on October 19, 1950 in her home in Austerlitz

The Courage That My Mother Had Poem The courage that my mother had Went with her, and is with her still: Rock from New England quarried; Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore She left behind for me to wear; I have no thing I treasure more: Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she’d left to me

The thing she took into the grave!— That courage like a rock, which she Has no more need of, and I have.

Poetic DeviceFour Line Stanza

Example: “The golden brooch my mother wore She left behind for me to wear: I have no thing I treasure more: Yet it is something I could spare.”

Final words of first and third lines rhyme

Final words of second and fourth line rhyme

4

Poetic DeviceIambic Tetrameter

Example: “ The golden brooch my mother wore” The gold / en brooch / my mother / er wore

Iambic referred to iambs, 2 syllables where first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed

Tetrameter shows there are four segments (feet) in each line

Poetic DeviceSong / Complete Thought

Example: “The courage that my mother had Went with her, and is with her still: Rock from New England quarried: Now granite in a granite hill.”

Song like quality when read aloud

Each stanza has complete thought

Common Theme Memory

Example: “The golden brooch my mother wore She left behind for me to wear”

Brooch remembers both living mother and fact that she is dead

Remembers living mother who wore the brooch

Millay wouldn’t have brooch if mother didn’t die

Common ThemeStrength and Weakness

Example: “That courage like a rock, which she Has no more need of, and I have.”

Mother compared to granite, strong and long lasting

Millay needs mother’s courage

Millay also admits her fear

ThemeCourage always stays with you, even when you die.

Examples: “The courage that my mother had Went with her, and is with her still:”

“That courage like a rock, which she Has no more need of, and I have.

Both show how her mother still has courage even when she died.

Courage

Interesting Facts Bad health

Got into car crash in 1936

Health got worse from there on

Interesting FactsAlways Busy

Never kept still

Won Pulitzer Prize in 1923

Granted Honorary degree from Tufts University in 1925

Bibliography"The Courage That My Mother Had." Poetry for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Mary

Ruby. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 78-89. Gale

Virtual Reference Library. Web. 30 May 2014.