Ervin Yahr III

Dr. Erin VanLaningham

Literary Studies

13 May 2016

Defense of a Woman’s Sexuality: Man v. Woman

Poets often utilize poetry to give society a new lens through which to look at an opinion

of an issue in their time. One issue covered by multiple poets in the past is women’s sexuality.

Whether the literature of the time views women’s sexuality as negative and something to

suppress or positive and something to embrace depends on the time period. In the United States,

the time between World War I and World War II showed growth in women’s sexuality, but not

as large of a growth in society’s acceptance of it. During the Troubles in Ireland, women’s

sexuality found itself oppressed once again in their history, especially for women attracted to

men in the British army. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” and

Seamus Heaney’s “Punishment” critique society’s view on women’s sexuality; displaying the

issue from the point of view of their own gender.

The time after World War I in the United States lead to and uprising for women in

society as they showed more freedom from their male counterparts and Millay joined in on this

literary movement with her poetry. In June West’s “The ‘New Woman,’” she talks about this

change in women’s minds about their sexuality and their democratic rights as human beings. She

writes, “Women’s emphasis on freedom and equality as human beings was bitingly satirized by

some of the writers of the time” (West 56). Millay’s casual language used in “What Lips My

Lips Have Kissed” satirizes the ideas of the 1920’s by showing her sexual desire to be nothing to

be ashamed of. She starts the poem saying that she has been with so many men that she fails to
remember who they were. She writes, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, / I

have forgotten, and what arms have lain / Under my head till morning;…” (Millay 1-3). Nothing

she writes implies that she frets over this lost knowledge, or that she wishes she remembered a

particular man she loved. Right from the start, readers know that she stayed with these men for

strictly sexual reasons. This may come as a shock for many people in the twenties and later the

thirties since marriage used to be the only option for most, if not all, women. West writes,

“Women’s economic independence governs the form that their affectional relationships assume.

Since marriage is no longer the only career open to women, they have the advantage and can

demand whatever terms they wish” (West 57). Women gained power sexually because they no

longer need men to have power in society – Millay uses her casual tone to convey this in her

poem. Millay utilizes sonnet structure for many of her poems, and critics such as Debra Fried,

Jean Gould, and Jan Stanbrough note this in their literary criticism of her work. Fried states in

her essay “Andromeda Unbound: Gender and Genre in Millay's Sonnets,” “…we have tended to

assume that we know just how and why a poet like Millay must use circumscribed, traditional

poetic forms: to rein in her strong, unruly feelings” (Fried 1-2). Fried shows that the sonnet

structure reinforces the casual tone because it hides the passionate feelings that Millay may be

feeling while writing the poem.

Ireland’s freedom for women came in a more restricted form, since Irish patriarchy

deemed it unsavory to be with British males, so women’s already somewhat suppressed sexuality

was limited by men even further. Seamus Heaney chooses a different approach in his poetry to

critique society’s view on women during the Troubles in Ireland. Due to the influx of British

soldiers during the Troubles, some unfortunate women got caught up in the civil war the country

faced due to the split between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Women who fell
into relationships with British men often were attacked and killed by members of the Irish

Republican Army or IRA. These bodies, often thrown into the bogs in Ireland, are the focus of

Heaney’s “Punishment.” Punished for their sexual acts, Heaney takes a satirical tone when

offering up a critique on society’s handlings of the women, but his choice of harsh chastisement

contrasts the tone of Millay’s casual remarks. He calls the bog woman a “Little adulteress,”

(Heaney 24) and gives small jabs of pitiful words such as, “My poor scapegoat, / I almost love

you” (Heaney 28-29). He continues the punishment of the woman citing the fact that he would

not have done anything to help her if he could have. After the brief reprieve of scornful pity in

lines twenty-eight and twenty-nine Heaney continues, “but would have cast, I know, / the stones

of silence.” (Heaney 30-31) and again later, “I who have stood dumb” (Heaney 37). Heaney

shows that women’s suffering not only comes from people’s actions, but others not acting in

their defense. His satire comes out sounding more harsh and critical rather than Millay’s satire

which sounds playful and casual.

To further the messages given by both poems, Millay and Heaney both consciously focus

on the voice that gives the message and expresses their individual tones. Both use their speaker’s

gender and authoritative voices on the subject to show the message of women’s suppressed

sexuality. The authority in “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” comes from that of a women who

is clearly experienced sexually. Without a female voice in the poem, the speaker that Millay

created would not make as much sense defending the sexuality of women in the twenties and

thirties in the United States. The voice speaks as though it has experience, and this leads the

reader to understand that the speaker knows what they are talking about because only a female

would understand the plight of a desexualized, powerless woman. The sonnet structure reinforces

the voice of a woman because as Fried says in her essay, “…a potentially stifling poetic form
may amplify – give pitch, density, and strength to – a poet’s voice” (Fried 3). The stifling nature

of a sonnet shows that the voice may be stifled, such as a woman would be in the 1920’s –

especially a sexually experienced one.

The authority of the voice in “Punishment” comes from the fact that a member of the

Irish patriarchy is critiquing his own group of people – it comes from inside the group being

questioned. Heaney’s poem must be read with the thought of a male speaker because his

intention is not to create empathy for women by showing how bad they feel, but to create

empathy by showing how poorly men treat them. Linda Connelly points out that women received

rights comparatively late in the world in “The Limits of ‘Irish Studies’: Historicism, Culturalism,

Paternalism.” She writes, “… ‘Irish’ women are comparatively located ‘behind’ other women in

the rest of the modern world in the history of women’s rights (they were ‘late developers’). Irish

women are presented as culturally and socially backward, effectively overwhelmed by

Catholicism and clerics” (Connelly 149). Heaney is a part of the group of people who kept

women’s rights at bay – Irish males. Again, like in Millay’s poem, the speaker sounds as though

they come from experience being from a certain gender. Women would not understand the male

perspective feeling the need to help while having the both the ability to help because of their

gender’s general power over the other, but still being unable to help because of a social stigma.

Millay and Heaney’s poems both further the division in gender with their usage of

symbols describing the opposite gender. Millay draws a connection between the speaker’s past

lovers and a flock of birds. Millay writes the metaphor, “Thus in the winter stands the lonely

tree, / Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, / Yet knows its boughs more silent than

before:” (Millay 9-11). The birds symbolize the men as they consistently leave her, one after

another. She watched the men leave her and now she longs for them to come back. To show this
longing and the space in her heart left by the men, she finishes the poem with, “I only know that

summer sang in me / A little while, that in me sings no more.” (Millay 13-14). The time with her

lovers compares to summer and the songs of the season. The songs – or men – left. The choice to

compare men and a group of animals such as a flock of birds says a lot about what Millay thinks

about men. Comparing a human to an animal implies animalistic tendencies and a lack of

refinement that a human would have. This stems from the unfair treatment and the suppression of

women’s sexuality while men are free to do as they please. The fact that she chooses birds as the

symbol for men reinforces the view that men have more freedom than women since birds are

often thought to be amongst the freest creatures of the animal kingdom. Millay shows the

jealousy that women feel towards men as they try to build a base for sexual freedom in 1920’s

America.

Heaney’s symbol for society’s view women’s sexuality comes from what once was a

living woman, but is now a perverted version of her former self, and coming from a male, his

ironically scornful description of the bog woman shows what people did to the women during the

Troubles. He uses symbols in other works to describe the situation of Ireland during the

Troubles. This occurs in his “North” when alluding to Greek and Nordic myths. In the article,

“From Antaeus to the Bog Queen: Mythological Allusions in Seamus Heaney's ‘North,’” Mümin

Hakkioğlu and Erdinç Parlak note what Heaney intended in “North” saying, “…the poet

is at work for the purpose of uncovering the core reasons of the Troubles” (Hakkioğlu and Parlak

107). He continues the act of analysis of the Troubles with symbols in “Punishment.” Heaney

describes the symbolic bog woman with lines such as “… her naked front.” (Heaney 4), “it

shakes the frail rigging / of her ribs.” (Heaney 7-8), “her shaved head / like a stubble of black

corn,” (Heaney 17-18), “her blindfold a soiled bandage, / her noose a ring” (Heaney 19-20), and,
I am the artful voyeur / of your brain’s exposed / and darkened combs,” (Heaney 32-34). This

desecrated body described by Heaney lists some of the actions taken on women during the

Troubles. These include blindfolding them, shaving their heads, and hanging them. After taking

away what little sexuality these women had, Irish men would then kill them. Heaney juxtaposes

the images of a desexualized woman with that of what she used to be, and should be allowed to

be – a beautiful, free woman. He describes her with:

before they punished you

you were flaxen haired,

undernourished, and your

tar-black face was beautiful. (Heaney 24-27)

Heaney shows this objectified woman can be both beautiful and horrifying for men. The division

between men and women comes out since the woman becomes an object to symbolize the

disparity between the two genders’ sexualities in Ireland. This opposes Millay’s symbol of men

because while she takes away their humanity, she turns them into free birds, not a body dumped

in the bogs of Ireland.

The suppression of women’s sexuality through history has been critiqued by both men

and women. Due to the differences in their experiences with the suppression, the two genders

show their distaste for the issue in different ways. “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” uses

ironically casual language, a sexually experienced woman’s voice and symbols of men’s

freedom to show that women and men are not treated equally. “Punishment” uses ironically

harsh language, an Irish male voice, and the symbol of an objectified woman to show that

women are treated incorrectly and men know they are to blame. Millay and Heaney utilize their
own genders and their poetry to show that something needed to happen in order for women to

gain the sexual freedom that they deserve in 1920’s America and 1990’s Ireland.
 Works Cited

Connolly, Linda. “The Limits of ‘Irish Studies’: Historicism, Culturalism, Paternalism.” Irish

Studies Review 12.2 (2004): 139–162. Print.

Fried, Debra. “Andromeda Unbound: Gender and Genre in Millay’s Sonnets (Winner of the

1986 TCL Prize in Literary Criticism).” Twentieth Century Literature 32.1 (1986): 1–22.

JSTOR. Web.

Hakkioğlu, Mümin, and Erdinç Parlak. “From Antaeus to the Bog Queen: Mythological

Allusions in Seamus Heaney’s North.” Antaeus’tan Bataklık Kraliçesi’ne: Seamus

Heaney’nin North Adlı Yapıtında Mitolojik Göndermeler. 17.2 (2013): 105–118. Print.

West, B. June. “The ‘New Woman.’” Twentieth Century Literature 1.2 (1955): 55–68. JSTOR.

Web.