Critics have repeatedly commented on Millay's multifaceted personality as it shaped her poetry. Reviewers regard her as a complex woman whose career blossomed in a unique time for American women. Paula L. Hart of Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 45: American Poets, 1880-1945, for example, observes that Millay should be "recognized for breaking through the boundaries of conventional subject matter for women writers, while showing the range and the depth of the feminine character." Millay's personal life was part of her mystique as a writer, and her readers and fellow writers were intrigued. Mary M. Colum in the New Republic comments on Millay's role as a highprofile nonconformist:

Her reputation for unconventionality caused her to be
discussed by people for whom her poetic expression
was not of first interest. It also caused W. B. Yeats,
who was not overly impressed by her poetry, and
Thomas Hardy, who...