Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “What Lips my Lips have Kissed ” The sonnet “What Lips my Lips have Kissed ” is a symphony of love, mood and a free spirit of the young woman, who is the main character of this poem. The image of the woman in the poem is vaguely depicted through another symbolic image the tree, which is bare, silent and lonely in winter (Thus in winter stands the lonely tree), longing for love and joy, but the birds have vanished one by one. So the main character of the sonnet tries to recollect the old days when she was in love and this feeling, like spring for the tree, sang in her, – inspired, cheered, and brought her back to life. Love is viewed in the poem not like a romantic feeling but like a passion, more like a physical act, that brings consolation and salvation from grief and sorrow, heartache, which are symbolized as the rain that is full of ghosts. Thus for the main character love is not seen in abstract notions but in concrete nature of such words as lips, kissed, arms have lain, lads.
Such physical love does not restrict freedom and independence of the woman in the poem. She chooses love for the sake of love itself and thus she is careless about her partners, who are just unremembered lads for her. The main character forgets with whom and where she was looking for consolation, her spirit is not burdened with such recollections: what lips my lips have kissed, and where and why, / I have forgotten, what arms have lain/ Under my head till morning. But, all in all, the main character is positive, independent, and restless. The woman in the poem loves, but she is not attached, lonely, but not depressed, free but not dissipated. Also, the mood of the main character is not calm and constant, it varies throughout the poem. In the first line the mood seems to be skittish, playful and carefree.
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This effect is produced by the repeated assonants: What lips my lips have kissed, and where and why. This mood is like a bright and sunny morning, but at night it undergoes abrupt changes the rain/ Is full of ghosts that tap and sigh / Upon the glass and listen for reply. The darkness of the night symbolizes sorrow and pains of the lonely heart that is terrified with its loneliness. But at the same time, the pain that stirs is quiet, as if the woman is accustomed to it and accepts it with her philosophical stoicism. The radical changes of the mood of the main character are represented through antitheses: morning and midnight, summer and winter, sang and silent. At the end of the poem the main character seems to be sorry about the past. She regrets that joyful and fleeting time that went away and nothing left but her recollections: I only know that summer sang in me / A little while, that in me signs no more.
Sometimes the mood of the woman in the sonnet calms down, sometimes it is excited that is demonstrated through the word order of the sentences: it is regular mainly at the beginning: and what arms have lain / Under my head till morning; inverted in the middle: Will turn to me at midnight with a cry; and finally the poem ends with an inverted sentence as well: that in me signs no more. Altogether, the mood in “What Lips my Lips have Kissed ” can be characterized as sad and pensive and this is evidenced by a great number of corresponding words: where, why, what, rain, ghosts, sigh, quiet pain, unremembered, tonight, winter, lonely tree, more silent than before, a little while and signs in me no more. Besides, to emphasize the main idea of the sonnet, Edna Millay widely used literary devices. “What Lips my Lips have Kissed ” is decorated with metonymies: lips that kissed the heroine and arms that lay under her head stand for her lovers, glass means an alcohol drink; symbols: night ghosts mean bad thoughts and terrors, lonely tree symbolizes solitude, birds means inconstancy in relationships; metaphors: quiet pain, summer sang, boughs more silent than before; epithet: unremembered lads, personification: quiet pain that stirs, the lonely tree that stands, summer that signs no more. Although Edna Millay depicts free love of her main character, there no traces of vulgarity or immorality. It seems that the author of the poem describes an independent woman, maybe an actress or a poet, who leads Bohemian life and is searching for her inspiration in love. Edna Millay mentioned many unremembered lads, loves come and gone and glass, that referrers to alcohol, as the way of life of her heroine. The main character compares herself with a tree and her lovers are just birds on it: there are plenty of them, they are easily forgotten, but when they vanish, the boughs of the tree become silent and solitary.
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The works Alastor, Frank stein, and Manfred have several concerns or issues in common. Since all three of these authors were in close contact with one another, and Byron s, ghost-story sessions are said to have provided the initial impetus for Mary Shelly s Frankenstein, then it would not be inconceivable for these works to discuss common issues. The main issue that is discussed in all three works ...
When the Millays heroine is loved, summer sings in her soul. When the main character is alone, her heart begins to stir with a pain, she becomes weak and unprotected from dark thoughts that like ghosts come to torture her, making her cry (the rain), and drink and fall into despair (tap and sigh upon the glass).
Thus love is considered in the poem not only as feeling or passion, but also in its wider concept: it is the meaning of life, the essential part of our living, the bases that keeps us, in other words – love is the God. Only love inspires Millays heroine, love consoles and saves her, makes her happy and gives her faith. Without love the main character loses her purpose and has to listen for reply in her soul, feels lost and isolated, like a bare tree in winter. In conclusion I would like to say that the poem “What Lips my Lips have Kissed ” by Edna Millay glorifies love and worships the meaning it gives for human life.
Also the author depicts the character of a creatively thinking independent person in the centre of the poem. Millay attempts to show the state of her heroine when she is in love and when she is not. Though the main character is careless and unserious about love as a feeling, she falls in a great despair when loses it and proves to be dependant on love as her God..
