Chris Barr
11-6-8
ENG 245
Professor Bertram
Gender Roles in the Sonnet Tradition:
An Analysis of Millay
Millay’s sonnet, “I Dreamed I moved through Elysian Fields”, is a moving poem about the speaker’s involvement in an erotic relationship and the similarity of that relationship to several prominent Greek myths. Her appropriation of the sonnet in order to reverse gender roles characterizes the poem as a feminist reinterpretation of a traditionally male-dominated poetic form. The mythic elements she uses and the form she employs demand a deconstructionist reevaluation of the norms and assumptions involved in sonnet interpretation.
The poem is in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet consisting of three quatrains and a couplet, written in iambic pentameter. It is important to note that although English and Shakespearean are often used interchangeably in describing this particular form of sonnet, a case can be made for a distinction, especially with respect to the content of the poem. English sonnets were generally written from a man to a woman. Shakespeare’s sonnets, on the other hand were almost entirely addressed to another man. This has often been cited as an argument for Shakespeare’s homosexuality.
Regardless of Shakespeare’s sexual orientation, it is significant that he used a poetic form which was traditionally reserved for expressing love between a male speaker and a female addressee. Like Shakespeare, Millay breaks with this convention, though her departure from tradition is primarily due to the fact that in her poem the speaker is woman and the addressee is a man. Therefore, in the strictest sense, her sonnet can be most accurately described as a variant of the Shakespearean sonnet, due to its inclusion of a male recipient.
Millay’s speaker is a woman who dreams of walking through paradise with other women who had each entertained a god while they were alive. All the women are mortals from Greek mythology who have had sexual encounters with Jove, a Roman god. This curious intertwining of Greek and Roman mythology seems to be quite intentional. During the ascendancy of Roman culture, Greek culture and mythology became absorbed and redefined through a ceaseless campaign of syncretistic efforts. It is not too extreme to say that the very foundational elements of Greek culture were penetrated, invaded, and redefined in Roman terms.
This very subtle theme of penetration and invasion sets the theme for the remainder of the poem, and serves to highlight the mythic elements of the speakers dream. Each of the women mentioned in the second quatrain was a woman who was seduced or raped by Zeus, here referred to as Jove. This quatrain very clearly creates a subject-object relationship between the very active Jove and the passive mortal women he chose as his lovers. Danae is described as a “vessel for a day”; Europa is desired and borne away by Jove; Leda is simply the “featherless bride” of the Swan, Jove’s chosen form in this case. This use of the word featherless is noteworthy because feathers were used as a symbol of male divinity in many ancient mythologies. Leda’s only significant characteristic is her lack of feathers, or her lack of maleness.
The third quatrain describes the reciprocal relationship between the speaker and the other women of the poem. These mortal women who have all, willingly or unwillingly, had intercourse with gods, allow her to walk freely beside them. Communication is free and easy, despite being in such an otherworldly situation, walking with nearly-divine women. Though she walks in fantastical company she is amazed at nothing because, remembering the addressee, she understands why she is there with the other women. This turn of the sonnet that comes with the couplet is the “aha” moment in which the reader becomes fully aware of what is happening in the poem.
Several things are immediately made clear in these last two lines. First, it becomes obvious that the speaker is a woman, whose memory of a man allows her to understand her situation. It also allows her to relate this situation to that of the other women in her company. She has come to understand that her place is among these women whose stories are similar to her own.
This gives the reader enormous insight into the nature of the speaker’s dream, as well as the speaker’s relationship with the unnamed man. The implication is that she, like the other women of Elysium, has also entertained a god while “above the ground”. Superficially this would seem to indicate that she has a great deal of love and admiration for her lover, whom she compares to a god. However, it is not just any god which provides the basis of comparison, but Jove.
It would seem that the speaker, like the other women, was also used as a vessel, seduced, and possibly raped. The depiction of Jove is one of a man determined to get his way, even resorting to trickery or force if simple seduction won’t work. Considering his marriage to Juno (Greek Hera), infidelity is obviously not beneath him. Given this portrayal, the speaker would hardly be blamed for seeing her unnamed lover as something of a villain. And yet, she seemingly still loves him. Of the three acts she explicitly mentions performing, one is that she weaves a garland for his living head.
It is hard to know for certain whether or not she feels slighted and abused by this man, or whether she feels a lingering sense of fondness and bittersweet love. It is likely that there is a mix of all of these feelings. On the one hand she is weaving a garland for his head in Elysium, a paradise she enjoys by virtue of the simple fact that her god-like lover desired and slept with her. On the other hand, she is comparing herself to a cast of mortal women who had all been used and discarded by a powerful and selfishly insatiable god.
By the end of the poem, it is clear that the speaker is not merely enjoying a brief visit to the afterlife, but that she is in fact dreaming of being dead. It is important to ask why she is dreaming of death. Is it because the abuse suffered at the whim of her lover is enough to cause suicidal fantasies? Is it wishful thinking that there could be such a silver lining in her afterlife, some sort of compensation for being forced to endure such injustice? Or is it that the loss of her lover is too great for her to bear and it is akin to death? Again, it seems likely that it is a combination of all of the above, though it is impossible to know for certain.
It is interesting that Millay is playing the active role in writing the poem, and the addressee is placed in the passive role, doing nothing throughout the poem. He is simply the impetus, the stimulating character for the Millay’s, or the speaker’s, thoughts and actions. The reader knows nothing about him, except for what comparisons she makes with myth. This reversal is one manifestation of Millay’s reversal of traditional poetic roles.
Another upheaval of the sonnet form is Millay’s use of a traditionally male form of poetry to criticize stereotypical male action. Her depiction of Jove is hardly flattery and it is this virile male sexuality which would likely be praised in more classically focused sonnets. The sonnet often gave voice to culturally ingrained sexual and emotional views and attitudes which would now be considered chauvinistic and sexist. That Millay used this platform for voicing a rejection of these attitudes represents a drastic undermining of previously upheld poetic conventions. It is Millay’s own penetration and invasion of the sonnet tradition, and appropriation of an old form for a modern deconstructionist perspective.
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