Analysis of "Love Is Not All" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
             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 contrasts the main theme, Millay is able to inflict a more vivid impression on the reader. Even the title gives us an idea of what the poem's theme is likely to be. "Love is not all" suggests that the persona is decrying love.
             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. Love will not refresh you or protect you from the elements, as it is not "slumber nor a roof against the rain." She then relates love to "a floating spar to men that sink," stating that it will not support you in times of disaster. 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.
             The perspective change of the sonnet occurs at the end of the octave and reverses the ordinace of love to be...