Analysis of The Plaid Dress

Edna St. Vincent Millay 1892 (Rockland) – 1950 (Austerlitz)



Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear?—
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence high judgments given here in haste;
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;
Confession does not strip it off,
To send me homeward eased and bare;

All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean
Bright hair,
Lining the subtle gown. . .it is not seen,
But it is there.


Scheme XXAXXXBB XCCA DADA
Poetic Form
Metre 1111 01011111110 11111 11001 110100110101 11110101011111 1111010101 00101010100111 111101 111111011111 01011111 11110101 110101101001 11 1001011111 1111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 625
Words 114
Sentences 7
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 165
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
114

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…

All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

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    "My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night."
    A Edna St. Vincent Millay
    B Sylvia Plath
    C Lord Byron
    D Wilfred Owen