The author of the poem is Edna St. Vincent Millay born in Maine a small town in the United States. The Sonnet is titled "What lips my lips have kissed". The poem narrates of various loves reaching an end and the emotional defeat associated to the loss. The poem is a sonnet as it contains fourteen rhyming lines. In such a poem, the first eight lines are referred to as an octave. In such a poem, the first full stop seems to occur after the octave. In addition, the second part consists of six lines and is referred to as the sestet. In a sonnet, the second full stop occurs at the end of the fourteen lines. In this poem, the feelings of love in the octave are similar to the emotions and attitude in the sestet.
The poem is a narrative, giving a close encounter of how life has been in her sphere. Millay narrates how she wasted out her love after an encounter with numerous lovers. Though a change occurs in the poem where Millay applies comparative image in expressing her personal feelings of love loss. Millay indicates" I cannot say what love have come and gone", this indicates that never loved her young lover men by enjoyed with them. She has lost all the lovers since she changed from one lover to another. From the line, it's clear that she feels a lot of loss after looking back at the youthful years. The differences between the sestet and the octave are that Millay compares and contrast her vanished lovers to ghost in the sonnet octave. Furthermore, the sestet outlines the loss and wastage of time in her life as she moves from love to lover.
[...] The poet applies the dramatic way of recalling her lovers. Millay feels guilty for breaking her lover's hearts, indicating that herself she feels a loss since she lost all love opportunities. From line six, seven and eight, Millay seems lonely as she will never her lovers again. Her memory makes her feel pain and anguish for the loss. The intimacy she encountered at the time makes her feel a long feeling for her lovers 'turn to me at midnight with a cry.' Conceivably, Millay seems to be a femme fatale type of lady, though currently she is facing a lot of pain and emptiness due to the loss. [...]
[...] Poetry Explication Analysis The author of the poem is Edna St. Vincent Millay born in Maine a small town in the United States. The Sonnet is titled “What lips my lips have kissed”. The poem narrates of various loves reaching an end and the emotional defeat associated to the loss. The poem is a sonnet as it contains fourteen rhyming lines. In such a poem, the first eight lines are referred to as an octave. In such a poem, the first full stop seems to occur after the octave. [...]
[...] In the poem, the poet have applied several sound effects such as alliteration that is the repetition of the first letters. For instance, in the ‘what lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why.' There is a repetition of w's and I's. Furthermore, we have the assonance that is the repetition of vowels, Note the 6 ‘a' sound repeated in the following line, have forgotten, and what arms have lain,' Note the ‘o' sound in the two final lines of the sonnet. [...]
[...] Though a change occurs in the poem where Millay applies comparative image in expressing her personal feelings of love loss. Millay indicates” I cannot say what love have come and this indicates that never loved her young lover men by enjoyed with them. She has lost all the lovers since she changed from one lover to another. From the line, it's clear that she feels a lot of loss after looking back at the youthful years. The differences between the sestet and the octave are that Millay compares and contrast her vanished lovers to ghost in the sonnet octave. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
