Subjects:
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sonnet “Love Is Not All” describes love unlike other sonnet’s by great poetics. It does not intially portray love as a universal feeling of magnitude felt by all. It is as orindary and unimportant as many objects that are taken for granted in this age. Although love can never be forgotten or traded in for ones life it is still of importance in this sonnet. These ideas are described with help of figurative language and the conventions of the Shakepearean sonnet with some minor alterations.
In the first octave of “Love Is Not All”, Millay shows that love is arbritrary, it is not food or water, and it will not save a drowning man from death or give one air to breath, it is mearly an emotion that conquers all others and makes everything else absolete. This poem uses indirect theme and abrupt change in message to add more emphasis to the meaning of the poem. By beginning the poem with an image that cont
. . .
This change of perspective is one of the more delicate and indirect tools used to drive a point home to the reader.
The perspective change of the sonnet occurs at the end of the octave and reverses the ordinace of love to be of something great, that people value love above their own lives. The early turn in the seventh line, “Yet many a man is making friends with death / Even as I speak, for lack of love alone” contridicts everything the poet has written thus far. The final line, however, is very simple. Her word choice in this octave causes desparity and forcefulness throughout the rest of the octave by emphasizing the negative effect of what love can not do for a person. ” She then relates love to “a floating spar to men that sink,” stating that it will not support you in times of disaster. Though, one could never replace love for something of value or for ones life because love is in essance a necesity.
Love can be thought of as being overrated in a life of great adventures. Even the title gives us an idea of what the poem’s theme is likely to be. The use of figurative speech earlier in the sonnet to state the opposing thought makes this line more memorable and powerful. The sudden contrast in mood and theme catches the reader’s attention. Throughout the sonnet, the lines are long and full of many-syllable words.
Millay uses a group of anti-similes that declare what love is not; “it is not meat nor drink,” therefore we presumably can not live without it. To make the the last line stand out with emphasis, Millay employs inconsistent line structure and rhyme scheme in addition to the theme change.
Essay's Topics
All research is for reference purposes only.