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Millay works both in traditional and experimental forms. Traditional forms incorporate meter and rhyme, and Millay is most known for English sonnet structure. She utilizes traditional forms to convey political and philosophical topics connected with gender and sexuality. Millay is most known as a skilled sonneteer. Formal poetry utilizes meter (a controlled arrangement of stressed or unstressed syllables) and incorporates end-rhyme scheme, either consecutive or patterned.

Many also consider Millay a part of the Modernist literary movement. Modernist literature often reveals experience in unconventional ways such as stream of consciousness and deviation from linear narrative (MasterClass. “Modernist Literature Guide: Understanding Literary Modernism—2022.” MasterClass, MasterClass, 14 Apr. 2021). Many credit the poet Gertrude Stein with encapsulating this approach with the phrase “a rose is a rose is a rose.” When one repeats the word “rose” enough times, the mental picture of a rose begins to morph.

Although Millay is most known for traditional form, she experiments by returning to and diverting from it, especially with the traditional English sonnet style in both line count and meter.