Preview

Edna St. Vincent Millay's Love Is Not All: It Is Not Drink

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
192 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Edna St. Vincent Millay's Love Is Not All: It Is Not Drink
In the poem “Love is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink” the title to Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, there is a clear sign of bitterness in the poem that impedes and becomes a barrier towards the idea of love. However, Millay in this stanza has used several poetic methods by showing us that love is not significant in anyone's life. As we progress on with the poem, Millay indicates that although love is not as significant for one's survival, she would not at any time in her life wish to live without it. This poem focus is her personal thought that questions the transitory nature of love, its depth, and importance.
When it comes to the structure of this poem, Millay utilizes the Iambic pentameter in the initial seven verses. She uses the same
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Analyzing The Poem 'Fishhawk'
    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Analyzing The Poem 'Fishhawk'

    Structurally, this poem has both the assonance and alliteration of a lyric poem. For example, “Watercress grows here and there…. Gentle maiden, pure and fair”, and the fishhawk’s song, guan guan. The subject of the poem is passionate love that has not/or cannot be obtained. There is a longing for this love that keeps him up at night. Love’s suffering…

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Dylan Thomas 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'
    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Dylan Thomas 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'

    “Love is not all” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, is a sonnet consisting of 1 stance and 14 lines in total. The poetic devices that the sonnet possesses in order to convey its theme are metaphors and imagery. The first device that Millay uses is metaphors where Millay compares love to everything that we believe that aren’t true about love. Such examples are included in the first and second line of the sonnet where, “it is not meat nor drink. Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain” (Millay, 1931). These examples are established in the sonnet in order for Millay to inform the reader that love is not all the things that you think it is, but instead the opposite. These examples start from the first line all the way to line seven where Millay then mainly puts focus on the second device, imagery. Even though there is imagery used throughout the entire sonnet, the last couple of lines is when this device is mostly put to effect towards what love does to the significant other. These examples are revealed to the…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Awakening Quotes About Edna's Suicide
    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Awakening Quotes About Edna's Suicide

    In the novel, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna is a married woman who abandons her family to achieve her goal of having freedom. The first part of the novel takes place in the Grand Isle, where she meets friends like Adele Ratignolle, Mademoiselle Reisz, and Robert. While at the Grand Isle Edna awakens to the fact that nobody can posses her while she was swimming. Robert and Edna have a very close relationship where the two of them are hanging around each other for a long period of time. Robert leaves for Mexico which causes Edna to become depressed. She returns home where she meets Arobin, who she had an affair with. She sent the children away and Adele was telling Edna not to act like a child. Robert comes back from Mexico and tells her that he loved her and wants to marry her. Robert leaves Edna because he loves her and that causes Edna to commit suicide. “Edna’s suicide represents her final attempt to escape -to escape her children, her lovers, and most important, time and change. For only by complete isolation of self can Edna be truthful to her inner life”(Susan Rosowski). Nobody what Edna did to try and escape her responsibilities never worked which led her to commit suicide. She can’t take…

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Edna's Struggle and Awakenings Essay Example
    • 1149 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Edna's Struggle and Awakenings Essay Example

    Kate Chopin by the means of creations like The Awakening is trying to make the female in society think about her condition and also push the feminism movement. Her depiction of The Awakening is realistic as she develops Edna Pontellier's character from a socially and morally respectable individual to an individual that turns her back on everything that was certain in her life to become independent. She struggles between her subconscious and conscious thoughts as unusual feelings stir unfounded emotions and senses. Chopin portrays Edna as a character who is struggling against the society throughout the story and is also going through series of ‘Awakenings.'…

    • 1149 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Edna St. Vincent Millay's Poems
    • 354 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Edna St. Vincent Millay's Poems

    Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry appeals to me because of her frank and unconventional subject matter, her overarching theme of loneliness, and her use of nature imagery. By expressing her feminist views on sexuality in lyrical poetry, Millay’s poems come across as a surprising mixture of gentleness and strength. The women in her poems are unencumbered by the societal norms of Millay’s time, and they appear to embrace their sexuality as a strength. Additionally, I found her use of the traditional sonnet to express her open, non-traditional views of sexuality thought-provoking. Further, throughout Millay's poems runs a well-expressed, emotional theme of loneliness. For instance, in the poem, "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and…

    • 354 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    What My Lips Have Kissed Analysis
    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages

    What My Lips Have Kissed Analysis

    Vincent Millay’s it is about how her lovers have come and gone. Which is like Bishops poem because in a way she is losing over and over again because she says “I cannot say what loves have come and gone.” Referring to the love she has lost over time because she is no longer in love with them, or she was still in love with them where they were not in love with her anymore. She then says “And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain” is stating her heart is hurting because she is lonely now reminiscing on the love she once had, and she does not have now. In this poem I strongly believe like we talked about in class is her remembering of all of her past lovers, or that she does not have anyone to love her anymore. Which is a lot like Bishops poem granted bishops poem was not all about love, but we can infer that towards the end of the poem it was. Due to the fact in the end of the poem is talking about the suicide of her lover. The love she lost and how she was not a disaster when clearly she was left in a state of loneliness just like Millay’s in her poem. Millay’s diction tells us she is lonely by stating “I have forgotten, and what arms have lain” meaning that she forgets what a lover’s arms feel…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Poetry essay
    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Poetry essay

    The poet also uses imagery such as ‘lakes and ‘swans’, to symbolise the peacefulness, and also to symbolise love. You notice words that show the subject is not alone, with ‘we’ and ‘our’. These words and also the motion of the swans, the lake, and the peacefulness are foreshadowing that the poem will take a turning onto love that is more literate. However I don’t think that the poems theme is so much about love in particular, but about a natural love, a natural pull that brings two people together even after hard times.…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism In Edna St. Vincent Millay's Carpe Diem
    • 297 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Symbolism In Edna St. Vincent Millay's Carpe Diem

    Edna St. Vincent Millay uses symbolism to convey the theme of Carpe Diem or “seize the day” by living differently to stand out from the crowd or what’s considered normal to make an impact on those around you. For instance, in the poem First Fig, the first stanza “my candle burns at both ends” symbolizes how Edna lived differently in her life. For instance, is her sexuality toward men and women, which was not considered normal in her time, just like how a candle burning at two ends is different from a regular, common candle. Stanza two states that the candle “will not last the night.” This stanza conveys how her unlike nature was criticized or not acceptable to others, indicating how her light won’t last the night. “but ah, my foes, and oh,…

    • 297 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Love Is Not All Edna St. David Millay
    • 97 Words
    • 1 Page

    Love Is Not All Edna St. David Millay

    Love is a secondary need. The poem “Love is not all” written by Edna St. Vincent Millay respects her belief of love as unnecessary to satisfy physical needs. By taking the form of a sonnet, the poem utilizes both the Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnet forms, Shakespearean scheme of rhymes, however the poem presents two sections, which is usually a characteristic of Petrarchan sonnets. Therefore “Love is not all” has two topics: the first eight lines refer to the idea that love is not everything, while the last six lines describe the option of the author to…

    • 97 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Compare And Contrast Those Winter Sundays
    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Compare And Contrast Those Winter Sundays

    Love is a universal language. It is consistent among all cultures. It breaks down barriers and builds up relationships. Ultimately, it is what keeps families together. Although its preeminence is everywhere, the expression and perception of love varies individually. In the poems “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps” by Galway Kinnell, the individual families in these literary works experience very different forms of love. Whether it takes the maturity of an adult or the innocence of a young child to see that love is apparent, it is still undeniable the presence and importance that love plays in a family relationship.…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    My Dear and Loving Husband Essay Example
    • 502 Words
    • 2 Pages

    My Dear and Loving Husband Essay Example

    Two specific techniques are used to convey the idea of how the woman in the poem feels about her husband and how she expresses her feelings. These two techniques are rhyming and repetition. The use of rhyming gives the poem a flow to go by. Every last word of a line rhymes with the following last word to create a greater effect of what is being tried to say. The rhymed words give the poem an accent helping to capture the romanticism of the poem. Repetition is seen in the first three lines of the poem when the speaker says, "If ever." The use of these words over and over again show how the speaker feels that it is near impossible to find another love such as the one she has at the moment. These two techniques give the poem an atmosphere of true love and compassion.…

    • 502 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Since Feeling Is First
    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Since Feeling Is First

    Poetry is a tool used to express the poets' innermost thoughts and feelings. The poems discussed in this essay are about one of the most powerful and complex emotions of all, love. The chosen two poems are the following; "Since Feeling Is First" by E. E. Cummings and "Love Is Not All" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. While these two poems share the same topic, the themes presented in each poem varies slightly.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sharon Olds Sex Without Love
    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sharon Olds Sex Without Love

    One of the numerous levels of this poem is of the narrator’s initial response to sex without love. She does not seem to be scolding or preaching to those who have it. In fact, the narrator uses words that interpret the act of sex alone as being beautiful even if there is no love involved in the equation. The…

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Love should grow up like a wild iris
    • 1244 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Love should grow up like a wild iris

    Since the beginning of human existence love has earned a meaning of pure bliss and wild passion between two people that cannot be broken. Through out time the meaning of love has had its slight shifts but for the most part, maintains a positive value. In the poem “Love Should Grow Up Like a Wild Iris in the Fields,” the author, Susan Griffin expresses that this long lost concept of love is often concealed by the madness of everyday life and reality. In the poem, Griffin uses many literary elements to help convey the importance of true love. The usage of imagery, symbolism, and other literary techniques really help communicate Griffins’ meaning that love is not joyous and blissful as its ‘s commonly portrayed but often broken by the problems in our everyday lives.…

    • 1244 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Modern Love
    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Modern Love

    Use of intense simile and metaphor throughout “Modern Love” also demonstrates a grim view on the concept of modern love. The muffled cries of the wife are called “little gaping snakes” showing how afraid and vulnerable the husband is to them. The man’s wife has a “Giant heart of Memory and Tears” which shows the heavy, almost useless organ that the wife carries around within her, empty of love, only able to remember the sadness to which she has been subjected to. Then, the husband and wife are said to be “like sculpture effigies” in their “common bed,” lying “stone-still.” Instead of two lovers talking to each other and loving each other in their bed, a place shared between the two of them, they are “moveless” and silent. This makes modern love seem empty of joy, empty of companionship, and devoid of love.…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More

Related Topics