Aria da Capo

Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 1892-1950Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 40K words
Chapters: 4

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Aria da Capo by Edna St. Vincent MillayAuthor: Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 1892-1950,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 1, 2004

Editor's review

Aria da Capo is a verse play by Edna St. Vincent Millay, available as a public-domain electronic edition from Project Gutenberg. Compact in form, the work unfolds through shifts of character and scene to explore war, human nature, and art. Its language is at once poetic and stage-worthy, and its structure carries symbolic and ironic force. Its value lies in giving readers low-threshold access to Millay's dramatic writing beyond her lyric poetry, and it serves well as an introductory text to the American short verse play. Being a public-domain electronic text, it has no modern annotations or production notes, so readers must work out stage directions and character relationships for themselves. Read it as a closet drama to be spoken aloud and imagined, attending to the tension created by the rhythm of dialogue and the shifts of scene; readers interested in drama or poetry can see how a short play advances its themes within a limited span.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in American poetry and the short verse play
Literature lovers who want to discover Millay's dramatic writing and broaden their reading
Members of drama groups or reading circles looking for a short public-domain script
Learners with some English proficiency willing to read the text closely

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer long plot-driven novels and are unfamiliar with the verse play form
Beginners with weak English who need line-by-line annotations
Practitioners expecting full production notes and detailed staging annotations

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the scenes and character relationships, then go back and read closely for irony and symbolism in the dialogue.
Try reading aloud in roles to feel the rhythm and stage quality of the verse play; it is easier to enter than silent reading.
After reading, note the scene shifts and thematic threads, and trace how the short play advances its conflict.
If the English is difficult, learn something of Millay's poetic style first, then return to the text for close reading.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this poetry or a play?

It is a verse play: it has the language and rhythm of poetry, and also the characters, dialogue, and scene structure of drama. Read it as a closet drama, attending to how dialogue between characters drives the action and how scenes shift, rather than seeking imagery line by line as you would in a lyric poem.

Is it long? How long does it take to read?

The work is short, a brief play, usually readable in one or two sittings. For close reading and reading-aloud practice, plan two or three sessions, each focused on one scene or one set of exchanges, and sort out the thematic threads afterward; this makes the structure easier to grasp than reading it all at once.

Will the lack of annotations affect my understanding?

The public-domain electronic edition has no modern annotations or production notes, but the text itself is short and its threads are concentrated, so readers with reasonable English proficiency can grasp the main sense. Where symbolism or irony arises, work it out from the scene shifts and character relationships, or consult background material on Millay for support.

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About the author

Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 1892-1950 Author

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) was an American poet and playwright, with seven of her works held in this collection. Her major poetry volumes include Renascence, and Other Poems, Second April, A Few Figs from Thistles, and The harp-weaver, and other poems, as well as the collection Poems; her plays include the five-act drama The Lamp and the Bell and Aria da Capo. Her verse is concise and carefully cadenced, typically lyrical in tone, treating love, youth, death, and nature with intense feeling and a touch of irony; her plays are short and pointed in their allegory. Public information is limited, so details of her life cannot be given at length, but her work has had a certain influence on twentieth-century American poetry.