Analysis Of Love Is Not All

1039 Words3 Pages

Love is not all…Maybe? Love has been the cause of some of the greatest feats, discoveries, and battles in the history of man. It has driven men to insanity and despair, while it has lead others to happiness and bliss. This idea that love has a strong influence on man’s decisions can be seen in the poem, “Love is not all” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The most prominent theme presented in “Love is not all” is that although love is not a necessity of life, it somehow manages to provoke such great desire and happiness that it becomes important. The poem begins with a negative view of love, “Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;” she compares it to essential items such as food, sleep, and shelter (Millay lines 1-2). Millay questions the validity of love, and its purpose and place in life. If something is not needed, is it important? At this point in the poem, it is very clear that Millay does not feel love as being essential to her life. She even states that love is not a floating spar; it will not help drowning men nor help anyone survive, because it is just an emotion. This theme that love cannot save you from …show more content…

She created a negative connotation of love and its importance in the beginning of the poem, but gradually transitioned to uncertainty allowing the reader to make his or her own decision on the subject. Is love more important than food or shelter, or health? Millay definitely does not answer this question, but in a sense it was not supposed to be answered. Love is as important as one wants it to be. This prominent idea that love is not a necessity of life, but it somehow manages to provoke such great desire and happiness, that it becomes important is the theme of the poem. It is an engaging and thought provoking poem that allows the reader to also examine him or herself, while Millay promotes a direct theme with

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of We So Seldom Look On Love

    1051 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Terminal Avenue” versus “We So Seldom Look on Love” Eden Robinson’s “Terminal Avenue” was published in the anthology or collection of fictional short stories called “So Long Been Dreaming” in 2004. Bose “Terminal Avenue” is a futuristic dystopian short story about a young aboriginal man named Wil, who is torn between his aboriginal community whose traditions are being punished for by the police and or being punished by his family if he becomes a peace officer to survive the adjustment. Barbara Gowdy’s “We So Seldom Look at Love” is a collection of fictional short stories and was published in 1992. (Broadview Press) “We So Seldom Look on Love” collections include a short story about a young woman that lives the life of necrophilia who grew up in a moderately normal childhood until the age of thirteen. Where one day she finds a forceful energy she gets from when life turns into death, and continues to experiment with dead animals and cadavers.

    Read More

  • Apology For Want Summary

    430 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Desert at Hand, the first poem she read to us, although by far the one which moved me the most, seemed very confusing at first. She opens "Love is also fragment: the cheek of the moon's fat-boy face giving itself up to be kissed, the ingredient phrase, I can't live without you, the sum of the few words that truly invent themselves - You are." At first, the impression of the poem's direction and attitude seemed positive, inspiring the thought that love really is self-sufficient despite it's fragility. Even the title The Desert at Hand seems to imply a biblical simile, that love is a test which can both test and strengthen you, just as Jesus' 40 days in the desert was a time of great temptation and redemption for him.

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Article 'Measurement of Romantic Love' by Zick Rubin

    887 Words  | 2 Pages

    The article, “Measurement of Romantic Love” written by Zick Rubin, expresses the initial research aimed at presenting and validating the social-psychological construct of romantic love. The author assumed that love should be measured independently from liking. In this research, the romantic love was also conceptualized to three elements: affiliative and depend need, an orientation of exclusiveness and absorption, and finally a predisposition to help.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Love In Sappho's 'Deathless Aphrodite'

    1804 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sappho, who is very well the speaker and author of the poem, clearly recognizes the substantial impact that love creates in relation to the amount of happiness people experience. Those who are successful in the game love, whether it be by giving it or receiving it, are far happier than those who confront despair and rejection. Finding love means finding the acceptance, companionship, and most of all, happiness that everyone strives to receive in their lifetime. As a result, love becomes a weapon for power, superiority, and control.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of One Perfect Rose

    1235 Words  | 3 Pages

    Men focus on the material items to show their love, the man in the poem chose a rose. Even though his heart was enclosed and he chose it tenderly the woman was still not pleased. No matter how perfect the rose is the woman will always long for something unique. “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways” focuses on the love of the woman. Instead of focusing on the material love Elizabeth Barrett Browning focuses on the concept of love. She discusses how love can spread near and far and it doesn't have any boundaries. Browning counts the ways she is in love and how far it will go. To her there is no limit on love it instead breaks the walls of constraint. She discusses how her love consumes her, nothing is going to stop her from loving the person she is with. Everything inside of her is put towards loving someone else. She doesn't feel the need to include material items. In her poem she talks about the part of love that has no price tag, the part that can only come straight from the heart. She has experienced a love that has affected her in a great way. This love has shown her what true love looks like. She no longer needs material items to feel loved. Instead of focusing on the cliché side of love she looks beyond it to the greatness of a love

    Read More

  • Comparing Bradstreet's To My Dear And Loving Husband

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    Initially, the theme in “To My Dear and Loving Husband” is simple and concise. In the poem love is made out to be very important to the poet. Therefore I feel the overall theme for this poem is love. I believe it to be love because of the many mentions of the word itself. Not only does the word “love” itself appear throughout the poem, the many forms of love are also used. In the 1600’s when Puritans walked the Earth in abundance, love and

    Read More

  • True Love Analysis

    721 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ninety percent of Americans marry by the time that they are fifty; however, forty to fifty percent of marriages end in divorce ("Marriage and Divorce"). Love and marriage are said to go hand in hand, so why does true love not persist? True, whole-hearted, and long-lasting love is as difficult to find as a black cat in a coal cellar. Loveless marriages are more common than ever, and the divorce rate reflects this. The forms of love seen between these many marriages is often fleeting. Raymond Carver explores these many forms of love, how they create happiness, sadness, and anything in between, and how they contrast from true love, through his characters in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". Four couples are presented: Mel and Terri, Nick and Laura, Ed and Terri, and, most importantly, an unnamed elderly couple; each couple exhibits a variation on the word love.

    Read More

  • An Analysis of Millay's Poem, Renascence

    784 Words  | 2 Pages

    By using easy to comprehend language Millay convinces her readers to go along with turbulent and sometimes unrealistic action to convey common feelings for all people. No matter what theme the reader applies to this poem it is important in some way to every reader and has meaning in many situations.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Love's Bond

    1435 Words  | 3 Pages

    Robert Nozick’s Love’s Bond is a clear summary of components, goals, challenges, and limitations of romantic love. Nozick gives a description of love as having your wellbeing linked with that of someone and something you love. I agree with ideas that Nozick has explained concerning the definition of love, but individuals have their meaning of love. Every individual has a remarkable thing that will bring happiness and contentment in their lives. While sometimes it is hard to practice unconditional love, couples should love unconditionally because it is a true love that is more than infatuation and overcomes minor character flaw.

    Read More

  • Lucie's Loving Ways in Charles Dickens´A Tale of Two Cities

    683 Words  | 2 Pages

    The effects of love and sacrifice on one’s life can be shown through the character of Lucie Manette in the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The way Lucie applies warmth to her friends and family and sacrifices for them has a greater impact than anything else could possibly do. In fact, loving gestures have the power to do anything. They can brighten moods and ameliorate one’s day. Overall, Love is a powerful feeling. It can be defined in many ways, but is always an important emotion to have. Without it, humans are empty. It is a necessary part of living; with it, anything is possible.

    Read More

  • Love, Decisions, and Sacrifice in Robert Frost's Love and a Question

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love is a big part of human life. Love in this poem can be described in two different ways. One way is the love of helping people. The other way is the love of a relationship. The love of a relationship is more than a feeling when it is real. It is a sensation, a connection, something that can not be replaced. In the poem the speaker is torn between the two types of love at first. It is shown in the first two stanzas that the speaker does not know what to choose. Either to let the stranger into the house and not make love to his new wife, or not let the stranger in and send him out into the dangerous night and make love to his wife. The last line of the poem shows that the speaker in someway have feelings for the stranger. The speaker wish he knew what would happen to the stranger after he sent him out into the night.

    Read More

  • Comparing Women in A Man's Requirements and A Letter to Her Husband

    644 Words  | 2 Pages

    Authors use poetry to creatively present attitudes and opinions. “A Man’s Requirements,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment” are two poems with distinct attitudes about love that contain different literary approaches. In both of the poems, love is addressed from a different perspective, producing the difference in expectation and presentation, but both suggest the women are subservient in the relationships.

    Read More

  • Love for Friends and Love for Lovers Compared in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream

    1214 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ce of outside forces. However, the male-female love still exists in the world because the world in reality is a play where each being can write their script. In poetry reality holds no limitations. Even though the lover’s love is not true, it exists in the world because of the human being’s fight to preserve it. True love may only be able to exist in the female-friendship as shown in the play, but love in relationships still exists because the world allows any being willing to become a poet to be one. Any person can preserve a dream of false love and turn it into true love is they are willing to believe it possible. True love can only exist without penetration, domination, desire, or loss of identity, which exist in male-female love. However, love exists in this relationship because poetry has the ability to transfer this love away from a dream and into existance.

    Read More

  • An Analysis of To Have without Holding by Marge Piercy

    1382 Words  | 3 Pages

    She defines her idea of what is right in a relationship by describing how hard and painful it is for her to stray from that ideal in this instance. As the poem evolves, one can begin to see the author having a conflict with values, while simultaneously expressing which values are hers and which are unnatural to her. She accomplishes this accounting of values by personalizing her position in a somewhat unsettling way throughout the poem.

    Read More

  • Dependency of Love

    947 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love is the ubiquitous force that drives all people in life. If people did not want, give, or receive love, they would never experience life because it is the force that completes a person. People rely on this seemingly absent force although it is ever-present. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is an influential poet who describes the necessity of love in her poems from her book Sonnets from the Portuguese. She writes about love based on her relationship with her husband. Her life is dependent on him, and she expresses this same reliance of love in her poetry. She uses literary devices to strengthen her argument for the necessity of love. The necessity of love is a major theme in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnet 14,” “Sonnet 43,” and “Sonnet 29.”

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Love Is Not All

Open Document