Dresses Poeticall

The Plaid Dress

Strong sun, that bleach

The curtains of my room, can you not render

Colourless this dress I wear?--

This violent plaid

Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe

Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done

Through indolence high judgments given here in haste;

The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?



No more uncoloured than unmade,

I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;

Confession does not strip it off,

To send me homeward eased and bare;



All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean

Bright hair,

Lining the subtle gown. . .it is not seen,

But it is there.



--Edna St. Vincent Millay

Comments

[carbonelle]

"Strong sun, that bleach The curtains of my room, can you not render colourless this dress I wear?"Sure thing: Just hang on the back closeline from June to August and it should be nicely faded. Or just use the thing for a curtain, but then you'd have to swap it 'round after the first side was done...See, this is why they never invite me back to the literary circles, no matter how many cunning little cucumber or fish-paste sandwiches I bring.

[Floridaprincess]

Awhahahah Carbonelle. Where I live if I hung my clothes out they would all be faded except Dec,Jan & Feb. This Dec, Jan & Feb would not even work it was warm all those months too.

[Cari]

I love that poem.

[Anonymous]

The poet is speaking about the guilt she feels by not wanting to be held to follow the "moral" code established by the garment that she wears. The plaid dress, symbolic of Catholic school girl and the Catholic religion, is a constant reminder to her to maintain those high virtues. She states "through high judgements given in haste," then counters with "the serious breach of taste," on a literal level the author speaks about the lack of fashion of the plaid dress, but on a deeper level, she is letting us know that she does not deserve to wear the colors of purity because she is unclean. Even with "confession" or "clean bright hair", she is still marked by an unclean act that has shamed her. In the opening of the poem, the "sun" could also be symbolic of the "son of God" and she pleads with him to wash away her sins by making the dress, representing her religion the root of her guilt, basically disappear. What is the sin she has committed? Unpure thoughts maybe? If you read the biography info on the author, she was openly bisexual and in the time period of her life, it was clearly unacceptable. This poem may be about Edna's first unpure thoughts about other women or sex in general.