First Fig Millay's Fade From Glory

Like the candlelight in the poem "First Fig," Millay's own popular and literary relevance quickly burned out. At the height of her fame, Millay sold fifty thousand copies of a new collection in a matter of weeks during the Great Depression, a time when many Americans struggled financially. She scandalized the country due to her love for partying and sex, and she epitomized the Jazz Age bohemian scene in New York. Writer Thomas Hardy said that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Despite her fame, she was basically forgotten a few decades after her death. In the age of modernism, Millay's work was considered overly sentimental and trite. In this context, "First Fig" reads like a sad warning of what was to come for Millay's literary career. As literary and artistic tastes shift over the years, scholars and readers have returned to Millay's work with a renewed appreciation for its rich complexity.