They include themes of jealousy, unrequited love, and requited love. Some of the poems also address the nature of time and human mortality.

Like her contemporary Robert Frost, Millay was one of the most skillful writers of sonnets in the twentieth century, and also like Frost, she was able to combine modernist attitudes with traditional forms creating a unique American poetry.

Edna St. Vincent Millay occupies an uncomfortable position in relation to modernism. In the majority of criticism, her work is considered the antithesis to modernist experimentation: as representative of the ‘rearguard’ that rejected vers libre in favour of fixed poetic forms.

sonnet

All sonnets have the following three features in common: They are 14 lines long, have a regular rhyme scheme and a strict metrical construction, usually iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter means that each line has 10 syllables in five pairs, and that each pair has stress on the second syllable.

Theme is the message the play wants to convey. Some people describe it as a moral or lesson, but it is not always directly a lesson. A play will build theme largely through dialogue. Characters can say things directly related to the theme, as the events happen around them.

Key themes of Shakespeare’s Macbeth include: good versus evil, the dangers of ambition, the influence of supernatural forces, the contrast between appearance and reality, loyalty and guilt.

Shakespeare employs characterization techniques through dialogue by: Having characters use recurring themes and images in their speech. Giving characters names that connect with their personalities. Giving some characters specific speech or rhyme patterns to denote social standing.