Description:

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Austerlitz, NY, February 10, 1939
Edna St. Vincent Millay TLS on Interpretation of Her Sonnet 'Euclid' to Future Bestselling Author!
TLS

A stunning letter from 20th century poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) in which she comments on an interpretation of her 1922 sonnet "Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare". 2 1/4pp, measuring 8.5" x 11", Austerlitz, NY, February 10, 1939. Signed in full as "Edna St. Vincent Millay" with two additional holograph edits found in the body of the text, addressed to future bestselling author Bel Kaufman by her married name of Goldstine. Exhibits light age toning and expected letter folds throughout, with areas of minor tearing near edges. Evident soiling at folds on verso of last page, slightly bisecting a portion of Millay's last name. Very good to near fine overall.

Together with carbon copies of the 2p letter Miss Goldstine originally wrote to Millay which elicited the offered response, as well as a 1p follow up thank you letter. Goldstine, who had applied for a license to teach English in New York City, was turned down after an oral interview for "lack of background in English, lack of depth… [and] confused interpretation of the poem." She goes on to amusingly describe her "fatal interview", repeating her interpretation of Millay's sonnet and questioning whether or not she had correctly analyzed 'Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare.'

Millay's sympathetic reply reads in part:

"But you did not fail in interpreting the given poem, so that the fact that you were denied your license becomes mysterious still. It would appear from your account of the examination and of your analysis of my Euclid sonnet… that you gave a much better explanation of it than I myself should have, if suddenly confronted by it in such unreposeful circumstances, and this notwithstanding the fact that I wrote the poem myself. But then, of course, I should never be able to pass an examination to teach English even in the fourth grade, if my examination were an oral one;… Yet in the circumstances, since I had written the poem myself, it would be at least unlikely that I should not understand its meaning, and it could with prudence be stated only that I had failed to explain its meaning… Which would not mean necessarily that I might not be an excellent teacher of English.

As to your interpretation of my poem… I have only one suggestion to make: that you use the word 'truth' somewhat loosely; Keats did this, perhaps, in his line, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty-" which you quoted. Your quoting of his Chapman's Homer sonnet was apt: if one poem can be made clear in terms of another--- and it seems to me the best way of trying it, the most likely to succeed--- then you could not possibly, I should think, have quoted a poem more helpful to an explanation of my Euclid sonnet than this. For in these lines of Keats it is not so which is dealt with, the "wild surmise" that what one suddenly thinks one sees, one may really be seeing. Likewise the "luminous air" of my sonnet is not so much the air of "truth" as the air of the search for truth, the think, otherwise you would not have written what you wrote in your letter to me, that according to my poem "Euclid was the only one who saw Beauty, stripped of its unessentials, for as a mathematician, or rather, a geometrician, he perceived pure form,…"

There is this difference between your interpretation and my own; but I write you this after a careful consideration as to what this difference might be, and assure you that I should not have done as well as you did in an oral examination on my own sonnet."

Bel Kaufman (1911-2014) was a German-American teacher and author, well known for writing the bestselling novel 'Up the Down Staircase' (1964). After graduating from Columbia University with a Master's degree in literature, Kaufman married one Sydney Goldstine in 1936. Her aforementioned debut novel, which told the loosely autobiographical story of an idealistic college graduate who becomes an English teacher in a New York City high school, was later made adapted into the eponymous 1967 film starring Sandy Dennis.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 8.5" x 11"
  • Medium: TLS

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