Two Slatterns and a King: A Moral Interlude

By Edna St. Vincent Millay and Carl Van Doren

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) was an American playwright, Pulitzer Prize-winning lyrical poet, and feminist activist. One of the most celebrated poets in American history, Millay is hailed as the twentieth century's most skilful sonnet writers who expertly married modern attitudes with traditional forms of expression. Though most famous for her poetry, she was an accomplished playwright and wrote numerous successful plays and verse dramas. First published in 1921, “Two Slatterns and a King - A Moral Interlude” is a one of such dramas written by Millay and produced at Vassar college. Written in regular four-foot couplets, it draws upon fairy tales and revolves around a king who is searching for a suitable wife. Though he is desirous of the tidiest women in the land, a series of curious mishaps result on his marrying Slut and not Tidy. Other notable works by this author include: “Second April” and “The Lamp and the Bell”. Read & Co. Books is republishing this collection of classic verse drama now in a new edition complete with a biography of the author by Carl Van Doren.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Aug 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528790871

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in 1892 in Rockland, Maine, the eldest of three daughters, and was encouraged by her mother to develop her talents for music and poetry. Her long poem "Renascence" won critical attention in an anthology contest in 1912 and secured for her a patron who enabled her to go to Vassar College. After graduating in 1917 she lived in Greenwich Village in New York for a few years, acting, writing satirical pieces for journals (usually under a pseudonym), and continuing to work at her poetry. She traveled in Europe throughout 1921-22 as a "foreign correspondent" for Vanity Fair. Her collection A Few Figs from Thistles (1920) gained her a reputation for hedonistic wit and cynicism, but her other collections (including the earlier Renascence and Other Poems [1917]) are without exception more seriously passionate or reflective. In 1923 she married Eugene Boissevain and -- after further travel -- embarked on a series of reading tours which helped to consolidate her nationwide renown. From 1925 onwards she lived at Steepletop, a farmstead in Austerlitz, New York, where her husband protected her from all responsibilities except her creative work. Often involved in feminist or political causes (including the Sacco-Vanzetti case of 1927), she turned to writing anti-fascist propaganda poetry in 1940 and further damaged a reputation already in decline. In her last years of her life she became more withdrawn and isolated, and her health, which had never been robust, became increasingly poor. She died in 1950.

Book preview

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TWO

SLATTERNS

AND A KING

A MORAL INTERLUDE

By

EDNA

ST. VINCENT MILLAY

WITH A BIOGRAPHY

BY CARL VAN DOREN

First published in 1921

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Contents

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

By Carl Van Doren

PERSONS

TWO SLATTERNS AND A KING

EDNA

ST. VINCENT MILLAY

By Carl Van Doren

The little renaissance of poetry which there have been a hundred historians to scent and chronicle in the United States during the last decade, flushed to a dawn in 1912. In that year was founded a magazine for the sole purpose of helping poems into the world; in that year was published an anthology which