e. women) (Millay 1611, lines 4, 2). But although the first and most commonly used definition of zest is "keen relish; hearty enjoyment; gusto," the word can also refer to "liveliness or energy; animating spirit" (dictionary.com). Taken this way, the seemingly passive and accepting sexuality seen in the beginning of he poem is disingenuous and even coy. This interpretation is borne out by another structural details of the poem -- the repeated use of so-called feminine endings in the closing six lines (or sestet). In adding an eleventh unstressed syllable to the end of a line of iambic pentameter, Millay is not simply marking the sonnet's structure as her own, but she is doing so in a way that coyly hints at the changing tide of feminine perspective -- the feminine endings in lines 9, 11, and 13 make the sonnet a feminine sonnet, just at the...
Yet the decade immediately following World War I was an especially important period in the self-redefinition of women. Earning the right to vote marked a major advancement in the political progress of women in the United States, and the literature also marks their transitions from objects to full human beings with a full faculty to think and act independently.
Works Cited dictionary.com. "zest." Accessed 22 May 2009. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/zest
Norton anthology of American Literature, Volume D. Nina Baym, ed. New York W.W. Norton & Co., 2003.
