An Ancient Gesture

By- Edna St.Vincent Millay

• a lyric poem by the prolific 20th-century poet and Pulitzer Prize-
winner Edna St. Vincent Millay.
• The poem’s speaker is an emotional, hard-working woman who
compares herself to a woman from Greek mythology, Penelope, the
distraught wife who anxiously waits for her husband, Ulysses (or, as
it’s more commonly spelled, Odysseus), to return from war.
• well-known poems—“First Fig” (1920) and “Thursday” (1922)
• Ladies’ Home Journal first published “An Ancient Gesture” in 1949—
the year Millay’s husband, Eugen Boissevain, died and one year
before Millay died.
• Norma, one of Millay’s two sisters, published the poem in a
posthumous collection of poems she edited, Mine the Harvest (1954).
About the Poet:
• born in Rockland, Maine, February 22, 1892. Her mom, Cora, divorced her
undependable dad, Henry, early in her life and raised Millay and her two younger
sisters, Norma and Kathleen, with the help of family members.
• Behaving more like a prototypical boy than a stereotypical girl, Millay took on the
nickname Vincent.
• As a young teen, Millay published poems in the magazine for children, St. Nicholas.
• In 1912, an anthology, The Lyric Year, published Millay’s poem “Renascence.”
• The lauded poem attracted the notice of many people, including Caroline B. Dow,
the head of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) Training School in
New York.
• Dow helped Millay find the money to attend the prestigious all-women’s college
Vassar.
• At Vassar, Millay wrote and acted.
• She had romantic relationships.
• After Vassar, Millay moved to a bohemian part of New York City,
Greenwich Village.
• In 1917, she published her first book of poems, Renascence and Other
Poems.
• She also acted in The Angel Intrudes—a play by the socialist Floyd
Dell.
• In 1920, Millay published A Few Figs from Thistles.
• A year later, she put out Second April, and, in 1922, she published The Harp-
Weaver and Other Poems.
• A year after that, Millay won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
• The year Millay won the Pulitzer, she married a wealthy importer, Eugen
Boissevain.
• Dillon was the inspiration behind the sonnets in her 1931 collection, Fatal Interview.
• Millay also engaged in political issues.
• She protested World War One with the play Aria da Capo (1919).
• In 1927, she protested the execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
• The two faced charges of killing a shoe company paymaster in Massachusetts.
• Years later, as World War Two approached, Millay inveighed against
isolation and wrote poems to push America to join the war and defeat
the Nazis.
• During her life, Millay maintained a prodigious work schedule—
publishing and giving readings at a furious pace.
• She drank often and labored to the point of exhaustion.
• She frequently experienced bad health, and a car accident led to a
morphine addiction.
• In 1950, a year after Boissevain died, Millay finished proofreading
translations of Latin poetry, fell down the stairs in her Austerlitz home,
and died.
Context:
• “An Ancient Gesture” was published in Edna St. Vincent Millay’s
posthumous collection, Mine the Harvest in 1954.
• This poem is about a speaker who likens her emotional state to that of
Penelope, a character from Homer’s epic Odyssey.
• Penelope waited for twenty emotionally tedious years with the hope that
her husband, Ulysses’ return. Her story of loneliness, uncertainty, and
heartache is what features in this poem through the “authentic,”
“antique” gesture of wiping tears with the corner of an apron.
• In this poem, Millay shows how one woman has to suffer for the sake
make others happy even though she has no conviction that she would
finally be happy or not.
Summary:
• Millay’s “An Ancient Gesture” is about a speaker who wipes her eyes
(not tears) on the corner of her apron.
• While doing so, she thinks Penelope, the wife of Ulysses (or Odysseus)
did this too as a daily task when her husband was out for years.
• To prevent herself from committing infidelity, she weaved a shroud,
another “gesture” of stalling, throughout the day and unwove the same
piece during the night.
• In this process, she, the speaker thinks, became tired and suddenly burst
into tears as there was simply nothing she could do.
• In the second stanza, the speaker notes that Penelope’s gesture is
genuine and bears the mark of the classical tradition, featured in the
great Greek epic by Hope.
• This gesture directs how women (especially wives) should behave in
the case of an absent husband. Furthermore, the speaker contrasts
Penelope’s gesture of genuine sadness with Ulysses’ strategic gesture
of shedding tears to avoid addressing the public.
• Sarcastically, she says that Ulysses learned it from Penelope.
Meaning:
• The title, “An Ancient Gesture” hints at some act that upon repetition for
generations beginning from the classical age has become a tradition of
femininity.
• This “gesture” is what Millay’s speaker relates with as she also
undergoes somewhat a similar situation. Nonetheless one cannot say she
actually does undergo a sense of uncertainty as Penelope waiting for her
husband’s return.
• This poem contains a sense of objectivity while discussing the traditional
role of women suffering alone for the absence, or most precisely,
“otherness” of their husbands.
• It can also be interpreted as a glorification of women’s silent suffering, an
echo of Dickinson’s idea in “To fight aloud, is very brave –”.
Structure & Form
• A free-verse poem with no set rhyme scheme or meter, “An Ancient Gesture” consists of two
stanzas with nine and eight lines each.
• The length of lines is also irregular. Millay’s use of longer lines expresses the speaker’s
thoughtfulness and unnoticeable ache. She writes the poem from the perspective of a first-
person speaker, by using a powerful and witty voice.
• The poem begins with “I thought” incorporating subjectivity to the universal theme of silent
suffering.
• Though this piece does not have a set rhyming pattern, readers can find a few instances of
rhymes scattered across the text. For instance, the fourth, fifth, and sixth lines end with the
rhyming words “night,” “tight,” and “light.”
• Right next, the lines end with a similar rhyme: “years” and “tears.” Then to rhyme “do” in
the last line of stanza two, readers have to look back to the second line, specifically at “too.”
• Similarly, in the second stanza, “antique” (line 11) rhymes with “Greek” (line 12) and
“speak” (line 15). And “implied” rhymes with “cried.”
Literary Devices:
• Allusion
• There is an allusion to Penelope, the wife of the main character of
Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus or Ulysses. The poet specifically alludes to
the story of Penelope’s suffering when her husband was out to fight in
the Trojan Year and did not return for twenty years. In order to delay
marrying, she devised a strategy of weaving a shroud for her father-in-
law and undoing it all through the night. Besides, in line 13: “Ulysses
did this too,” there is an allusion to Ulysses’ return and his fake gesture
of crying in order to avoid speaking to the public.
• Metaphor
• In the first stanza, the reference to “weaving” is a metaphor for heartache
and suffering. The speaker says, “when you think it will never be light.”
This reference makes the comparison clearer. She tries to say that the
pain is never going to be lighter or reduced.
• Anaphora
• Anaphora occurs in lines 3-4 and lines 6-7. Millay begins these lines by
using “And,” signaling a sense of continuity. This recurrence of the same
word at the beginning of successive lines also creates an interconnection
between the ideas. Another variation of anaphora, known as anadiplosis,
occurs in the last two lines. The last word of line 16, “Penelope” is
repeated at the beginning of the last line for the sake of emphasis.
• Asyndeton
• Asyndeton is the deliberate omission of conjunction between parts of a sentence.
One can notice how Millay uses “And” often in the first stanza. In contrast, she
does not use the conjunction at all in the second stanza; for instance, in “This is
an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,/ In the very best tradition, classic, Greek.”
The omission is, indeed, used for poetic effect.
• Repetition
• This device is used in line 14: “But only as a gesture,— a gesture which
implied.” The speaker tries to mean that Ulysses’ act of shedding tears is a mere
“gesture” devoid of the genuine emotion of sadness, unlike Penelope. Moreover,
there is another repetition at the end where the poet intentionally refers to
“Penelope” twice to highlight her genuineness and importance (in the poet’s
story).
Explanation:

• Lines 1-4
• I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can’t keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;

• The poem is not titled “The Ancient Gesture”; it is “An Ancient Gesture.” Edna St.
Vincent Millay starts to surprise readers from the very beginning. Her poem is not
about the “act,” rather it is about “an” insignificant “gesture” that Homer failed to
glorify in his epic, Odyssey. He went a great deal to deliberate on the moral and
ethical sides of crying. A hero, in his case, Ulysses, must not cry publically. Else, his
subject will take him as an emotionally unstable ruler. He needs to be emotionally
strong enough to hide his pain.
• Millay applies the same reasoning to Ulysses’ wife, Penelope’s case. In her story,
Penelope is the “hero” and Ulysses is placed at the sidelines. He fakes and she
fights. The speaker begins the poem by likening her gesture of wiping her eyes on
the corner of her apron, to that of Penelope. It is important to note, the speaker
wipes her “eyes,” not the tears. So, there is no explicit comparison between their
emotional states in this analogy. She just thinks that Penelope did this “act” too.
• While Ulysses was out for twenty long years, Penelope repeated this “gesture”
more than once. In the beginning, she might be truly emotional. As the years
passed on, the act of missing her husband became a habit, a mere gesture. None
can keep weaving (or specifically stalling) all day long and undo it through the
night. In Homer’s story, Penelope could manage to do this for only three years.
Lines 5-9

• Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don’t know where, for years,
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.

• In these lines, Millay’s speaker directly addresses the audience and welcomes
them to participate in her thought process. She gives them a case to imagine: a
wife is weaving and weaving all day long and untying the pattern throughout the
night for the sake of keeping her busy in some futilely productive vocation. At
some point, her arms will get tired and the back of her neck will get stiff. In this
way, her physical pain will somehow discourage her to carry on the weaving.
• After undoing the day’s work throughout the night, she will realize the next
morning that all her pain is never going to lessen. Her husband has been gone
for years. On top of that, she is not even sure of his return (Dickinson also
elaborates on this in her poem “If you were coming in the Fall”).
• In the given scenario, what should the wife do? She suddenly burst into tears
not for the husband’s lack of responsibility for her, but for her utter
helplessness. There is no possible way out for her to be happy. First few
years, it seemed easy enough to live with the good memories. But, after
waiting for five or as long as ten to fifteen years, she finds it quite impossible
to remember one good memory to cheer her up. Those memories start to
haunt her now. Thus, the speaker says, “There is simply nothing else to do.”
(Note the use of the term “simply” and “else” for the sake of emphasis.)
Lines 10-12

• And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:

This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;

At the beginning of the second stanza, the speaker repeats the first line to draw
readers’ attention to the action of wiping her eyes. She is possibly doing some
domestic chores, such as cutting onions, dusting, etc. Something might have
gone to her eyes and she is possibly trying to remove it with the corner of her
apron. Whatsoever, then she alludes to Penelope’s act of wiping her tears as
“an ancient gesture” that is both “authentic” and “antique.” Furthermore, it has
become a “tradition,” dating back to the classical age. Women, for generations,
have repeated this gesture several times, in similar circumstances.
Lines 13-17

Ulysses did this too.

But only as a gesture,—a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope …
Penelope, who really cried.

• In line 13, Millay uses the same sentence pattern but replaces “Penelope” with “Ulysses.” He
performed the “gesture,” by not really diving into the emotional aspect. His “gesture” implied that he
was much too moved to speak to the assembled throng of Ithaca. In the next line, the speaker
ironically says he learned it from Penelope.

• One can learn a gesture or an act easily, but to understand the emotions behind the act one needs to
have prior experience. Penelope “really” cried while Ulysses shed mere tears like the speaker when
something went into her eyes. Besides, according to the speaker, Ulysses failed to empathize with her
wife’s desperation and helplessness. He only mimicked what he learned from her as he thought her
emotions were nothing other than a “gesture.”
Title of the Poem:
• The title of Millay’s poem “An Ancient Gesture” somehow hints at the
subject matter of the poem. Thus, it’s an interactive title that gives a
key to unlock the main idea. Primarily, it seems Millay’s alluding to
some unspecified “gesture” or “an” act. She does not use definitive
“The.” That’s why the title is about some “ancient” or old act that the
speaker personally feels is worth noting. It may have significance in
her life.
Historical Context

• Millay’s “An Ancient Gesture” first appeared in vol. 66 of The Ladies’

Home Journal in 1949. Therefore, Millay wrote this poem primarily for
women who could relate to Penelope’s pain.
• She somehow tried to make them think how women’s heroic mental
struggle is often undermined in popular culture. Their silent suffering is
overshadowed and their better halves fail to recognize or sympathize
with their pain.
• Millay’s husband, Eugen Jan Boissevain died in 1949 the same year she
wrote this piece. So, through this poem, she tried to showcase her
emotional instability and hopelessness. After Millay’s death, her sister
Norma published the poem in Mine the Harvest in 1954.
Questions and Answers
• What is “An Ancient Gesture” about?
• “An Ancient Gesture” by Edna St. Vincent Millay is about a speaker
(housewife) who thinks about Penelope’s silent suffering for her
absent husband while wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.
She is of the view that her “gesture” is both genuine and antique,
bearing the mark of feminine tradition. Thus, she can relate to her
inward battle the most and not to Ulysses’ gesture of shedding a tear or
two in order to imply he was too moved to speak.
• How is “An Ancient Gesture” similar to the Odyssey?
One of the well-known poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, “An Ancient
Gesture” is similar to Homer’s epic Odyssey. In the epic, Homer glorifies
the act of hiding one’s true emotions in order to portray oneself as strong
or sympathetic. While in Millay’s poem, the act of inward suffering is
glorified. So, for Homer, Ulysses is the hero and for Millay, Penelope is
the leading figure who showcases the qualities of integrity, self-restraint,
and honesty more aptly.
• When was “An Ancient Gesture” written?
“An Ancient Gesture” was written in 1949 and first published in volume 66
of The Ladies’ Home Journal in the same year. It was later included in her
posthumous book of poetry, Mine the Harvest published in 1954.
• How is the title “An Ancient Gesture” primarily effective?
The title of the poem is primarily effective because it aptly hints at the main
idea that is about the inward suffering of Penelope and the “gesture” of crying.
• What is “An Ancient Gesture”?
The ancient gesture is the act of crying out of desperation and hopelessness.
Millay refers to Penelope’s genuine emotional outburst as “an ancient gesture.”
• What is the theme of “An Ancient Gesture”?
The main theme of the poem is the emotional suffering of women for
their husbands’ absence. It also explores themes of the genuineness of
emotions, fake gestures, and glorification of women’s suffering.
• What is the tone of “An Ancient Gesture”?
The tone of the poem is practical, sympathetic, ironic, and a bit helpless.
• Who is the speaker of “An Ancient Gesture”?
The speaker of the poem is a modern housewife who likens her state to Penelope’s distress
caused by her husband Ulysses’ absence.
• How does Penelope’s “gesture” differ from Ulysses’?
Penelope’s “gesture” is genuine unlike that of Ulysses. His is a mere “gesture” devoid of
authentic emotions.
• How does Millay, author of “An Ancient Gesture,” use the story of Penelope and
Odysseus to convey a modern theme?
Millay uses the story of Penelope’s emotional turbulence due to her husband Odysseus’ long
absence in order to portray the modern theme of women’s inward struggle/suffering for their
absentee husbands. It is important to note that Millay’s mother Cora divorced her husband and
moved out with her daughters. Therefore, Millay herself likened her state after her husband’s
death in 1949 to those of her mother and Penelope.
Similar Poems about Women’s Suffering

• “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver” by Edna St. Vincent Millay — This

poem is about a mother’s pain at the sight of her poor boy in dire need
of clothes.
• “To fight aloud, is very brave –” by Emily Dickinson — It’s about
individual hardships and struggle that is as much important as physical
battles.
• “The Woman” by Kristina Rungano — This piece records one
Zimbabwean woman’s suffering in marriage.
• “I’m “wife” — I’ve finished that —” by Emily Dickinson — In this
poem, a speaker proclaims her independence from servitude as a wife.
Themes

• The Power Of Tears And Emotion

• In “An Ancient Gesture,” tears are a source of power and pride. The
speaker is either crying or has finished crying: “I wiped my eyes on the
corner of my apron,” she says in Lines 1 and 10.
• The tears don’t weaken the speaker, nor do they diminish her other
faculties. Contrary to sexist stereotypes, she can be emotional and
thoughtful at the same time.
• The tears yield to a meditation on another powerful, feeling woman:
Penelope.
• Penelope, too, comes across as a symbol of courage and determination. Her
tears don’t signal fragility, or if they do exhibit vulnerability, they simply
reveal her humanity and don’t automatically detract from her forcefulness.
• The speaker attributes Penelope’s tears to her resilience; She’s
“weaving all day” (Line 3) and “undoing it all through the night” (Line
4). Thus, Penelope’s emotions reveal her power to endure.
• She has the strength to keep up the charade of work and wait for her
husband to return. Her tolerance for pain and struggle accumulates into
an explosion or “burst” of tears in Line 8.
• Millay subverts the norm about crying in “An Ancient Gesture.”
Expressing emotions makes a person superior. A genuine display of
tears is a part of “the very best tradition (Line 12).
• Thank You