The libertine poet of the Roaring 20s, Edna St. Vincent Millay, (known by most for burning her 'candles at both ends') was a dedicated pacifist who married Eugen Boissevain, a Dutch businessman whose family was in journalism and other endeavors.
When Nazi Germany overran Holland, and Boissevain's family fortunes were subjected to that terror, she had to confront her lifelong principles with the knowledge of Hitler.
Well before the isolationist US entered the war, she began passionately sounding a call to arms, advocating our entry with books such as "Make Bright the Arrows"; "1940 Notebook" (1940) and "The Murder of Lidice" (1942). In doing so, she knew it was a calculated risk, yet considered Hitler to be so evil that all risks needed taking.
Though she'd made it clear such works were to be considered propaganda, rather than serious poetry, the literary critics savaged her, throwing her into a deep depression.
Recovered near the war's end, she again wrote verse worthy of note that shut them up....
(Just thought I'd mention another Dutch-related fact that has some relevance to our situation today, even though she was not Dutch herself... kevin) |
