Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sonnet What lips my lips have kissed and where and why

Interpret (tell me why you think the poet wants to use such images)As such, a sense of gloom permeates the writing.

The memories in the poem maintain a cohesiveness and continuity of experience through repeated motifs such as the violets and the ‘whistling’. Memories also give us a recovered sense of life, as shown through the final line of the poem ‘faint scent of violets drifts in air’. This example of sensory imagery also creates a rhythmic drifting sense linked closely to the “stone-curlews call from Kedron Brook”. It echoes images of the speaker’s mind drifting into reflection and aurally creates transience between the present and the past.

It creates a mood that readers can understand. Williams does a wonderful job contrasting death and life; his use of “attiring” and “disattiring” basically narrates how trees lose their leaves, leaving them “clothless”, but then the branches are preparing for what’s to come--their rebirth in the coming season. The liquid moon makes me think that he’s trying to create irony; the moon is liquid, as if melted, even though it’s winter time and everything is supposed to be frozen. The irony is subtle, yet very impactful when you notice it. Perhaps the long branches represent the strength of the trees despite the harsh environment around them. The buds can be seen as children being prepared by their parents for what’s to come, possible teaching them what to do and what not to do so that they can survive the winter and bloom in the spring. Like letting a child go off to college after years of care so that they can become their own person. The “wise trees” have experience, an experience that they have to share with their “buds”. The wise stand sleeping in the cold to take their last breath and let their children take their places. This poem is very meaningful because Williams creates a very important similarity between the trees and humans. Readers can relate because most parents go through the stage of letting their children go and letting them continue what they

The poem’s structure as a sonnet allows the speaker’s feelings of distrust and heartache to gradually manifest themselves as the poem’s plot progresses. Each quatrain develops and intensifies the speaker’s misery, giving the reader a deeper insight into his convoluted emotions. In the first quatrain, the speaker advises his former partner to not be surprised when she “see[s] him holding [his] louring head so low” (2). His refusal to look at her not only highlights his unhappiness but also establishes the gloomy tone of the poem. The speaker then uses the second and third quatrains to justify his remoteness; he explains how he feels betrayed by her and reveals how his distrust has led him

Within Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,” she explains that young love, although fantastic, fades with maturity, but reminiscing upon those memories causes the heart to ache. Millay beings her poem by illustrating the numerous “love” encounters of the character being depicted. Millay states, “what lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain under my head till morning,” (lines 1-3). The author flashes back to the past life of the

The seasons are part of the mother's life, while the father goes through life as if all were winter. The mother runs her house according to the seasons. She grows "miraculous gardens and magnificent flowers…"(132), and during berry picking season, "She would walk miles…"(132).  Growing gardens, flowers and picking berries are seasonal activities. Every flower and fruit has its cycle during the year, which alludes how the mother lived through this. The importance of the seasons as part of the mother's life is presented even in the end of the story when the narrator says that the "[mother] looks through her lonely window onto the ice of winter…"(140). Therefore, she is alone gazing out the window, waiting for her death, which is symbolized by the winter. On the other hand, for the father all the seasons are the same. All of them are winter. The narrator describes his father, "with blue eyes flossing like clearest ice

The main theme within Clarke’s Sonnet is his distance and inability to communicate with a lover. This poem is written for his lover as an attempt to connect with her, although within the poem, he is continuing to communicate poorly. The way in which he copes with this broken relationship drives the tone of the poem.

The poem “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” is quite compelling though a bit baffling at first glance. The writer of this poem is Edna St. Vincent Millay, whose an American poet and playwright. Millay was born in Maine into a poverty-stricken family. Her mother was a fan of classic literature varying from William Shakespeare to John Milton and would read these poets’ works to her daughters. Ultimately, inspiring Millay into becoming a poet herself. In 1923, Millay won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry being the third female to win this award. In the poem, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, an explanation of the poem’s meaning, form, and pattern will be made in order to understand this writer’s work.

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Sonnet IV” follows many of the conventions of the traditional Petrarchan sonnet. It follows the traditional rhyming scheme and octet, sestet structure. However it challenges the conventions of the typical subject of the Italian sonnet, unrequited love. In the octet at the beginning of the poem Millay uses images that give a sense of transience and in the ending sestet of the sonnet she contrasts the sense of impermanence given earlier with the idea that the speaker cannot forget the smiles and words of their ex-lover. This contrast between permanence and transience illustrates Millay’s interest in a fugacious relationship with everlasting memories. After further analysis of Millay’s highly structured rhyming scheme which puts emphasis on the last words of each line. She uses these words to further express her interest in exploring impermanent relationships by using words that are associated with an end or death.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was an American poet and playwright who was best known for her feminist activism and her controversial views on love and sex. Millay’s open views regarding sexuality provide readers with insight when analyzing the tone of her Sonnet (Women Have Loved Before As I Love Now). Edna St. Vincent Millay’s use of powerful diction, exemplified by her choice of the words suffer and treacherous, add to her melancholy and lamenting tone in the sestet, and aid in the understanding of the overall message of her sonnet. Millay’s use of the harsh word suffer, sets a melancholy and lamenting tone in the sestet of her sonnet, which contradicts her carefree tone in the octave. She uses the word suffer to describe how she feels

Edna St. Vincent Millay articulated poetry that exposed the mentality of transcendent American women. In other words, her poems reflected the feminist perspective and intended to shatter the preconceived expectations that deprived and belittled progressive American women. Millay poetically portrayed women that lived independently, sexually, and tenaciously; for instance, Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” through the narrative of a woman reminiscing over promiscuous encounters with unremembered lads. The poem painted a lone woman, a woman who lost the will to find a man and was a rather progressive piece, considering women at the time were meant to compliment men—like a fine piece of clothing,

Love can be quite a difficult topic to write about, expressing one’s intimate and innermost emotions requires a great level of dedication and honesty. If done correctly, the outcome is truly stunning. John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” and Katherine Philips’s “To Mrs. M.A. at Parting” are two masterpieces of this genre. These poems depict the concept of true love so meticulously that the reader cannot help but envy the relationships presented. Perhaps the reason that these works are so effective is due to the fact that they are incredibly similar to each other. Although some differences are present when it comes to structure and gender concerns, the poems share the same theme of love on a spiritual level and show many parallels in meaning.

As we discussed Astrophil and Stella in class, I felt a familiar knot in my stomach. At first I could not pin-point the reasons for my aversion to these sonnets. However, as we discussed it in class, it became clear to me. I could identify with Penelope Devereux Rich. Although Astrophil and Stella could be interpreted as an innocent set of love sonnets to an ideal woman and not a particular woman, they reminded me of the letters I received last year from a guy, Lee Burt, I had not seen in seven years. He stalked me by mail and phone. I felt small and vulnerable, and in some ways, violated. I do not hold much higher opinions of Sir Philip Sydney. I would argue that Sydney's

2) The season is winter because the story begins around Christmas. This is significant because of how the author describes things, people, and events in the poem. Also, the people in the poem are joyful, because it is New Years.

I interpreted this poem as a very sad one. A love unrequited by the pursued. In the first two lines the poem tells you to forget about the love you share and hear a tale of this. Not to literally forget, but possibly put aside. The man is a winter breeze, cold and rough and sort of roams the land. The woman is a window flower, shut off from the outside. This sets up the separation.