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Biography
Edna St. Vincent Millay was brought up in a small town in Maine in the USA.
Her mother encouraged her to read, develop her musical talents, and follow her ambitions Millay completed university and then moved to New York City and lived among fast-thinking people with new ideas She wrote plays and acted She was lively, sexually liberated, and independent Her poetry was praised for its for its freshness and vitality She is famous for her great ability at writing sonnets like the poem that follows.
Summary
In What lips my lips have kissed, Millay laments [cries for] her lost lovers. I cannot say what loves have come and gone. Overall, Millay reveals that she enjoyed rather than loved the young men who were her lovers. She lost them all because she continually changed from lover to lover. She looks back on her youth and feels an intense sense of loss.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten is the first line and a half of the poem. This quote clearly summarises the subject matter of the poem. Millay fondly remembers the delight of kissing many lovers. She loved the physical contact. She desired many young men and passed from one to the other forgetfully. The faces and personalities of the many lovers are forgotten. Millay does not remember them individually. She gives us a general image of a series of lovers. Does she mean she wasted her chances? She admits she has forgotten the various locations and the reasons for the many trysts. [Tryst is a word for a date that involves a physical encounter with a lover].
In the second and third lines, Millay pictures young mens arms that have embraced her all night: what arms have lain under my head till morning.
She mentions arms. This further shows that she cannot remember the people involved.
Millay may be admitting that she was careless and replaced her lovers too easily. The words till morning suggest these were one-night stands. She does not give the impression that she developed relationships.
In the fourth and fifth lines Millay imagines that the noise made by the raindrops on her window are the attempts of young lovers to contact her again. She compares the forgotten lovers to ghosts.
In the sixth, seventh and eighth lines Millay shows her lonely emotion for all the lovers of her past who she wont see again. She remembers them with painful longing. The memory stirs a quiet pain. Millay recalls deep moments of intimacy: turn to me at midnight with a cry. Perhaps she was a femme fatale type and now faces in herself the pain and emptiness she caused to her lovers in the past. A femme fatale is a beautiful woman who wins the hearts of men and immediately cuts them off as she seeks new conquests.
In the sestet, the last six lines, Millay feels she has grown too old. She can no longer experience the passionate love of her youth.
In lines nine, ten and eleven Millay compares herself to a lonely tree that misses the songbirds of summer. The songbirds represent her lovers.
The reader must think that unlike the tree, Millay could have prevented her loneliness.
In line twelve she repeats that she cannot remember her lovers individually:
Themes
Emotions last even though memories vanish:
in my heart there stirs a quiet pain for unremembered lads.
Millay broke hearts and squandered [wasted] her chances for happiness:
ghosts to-night, that tap and sigh upon the glass and listen for reply.
Millay laments the way the joys of young love and summer are brief:
I only know that summer sang in me a little while that in me sings no more.
Millay feels despair at the way her life has changed like the seasons:
I only know that summer sang in me a little while that in me sings no more.
Tones
In the octave the tone is wistful [full of sad longing]:
the rain is full of ghosts to-night, that tap and sigh.
In the sestet Millay compares herself to a lonely tree. [If you wish to, you can refer to this comparison as an analogy. An analogy is a parallel image. The tree is an analogy for the poet herself. Without this analogy or comparison, we would know a lot less about Millays feelings. The comparison or analogy is an image for the poets sense of loss.] The vanished birds stand for her vanished lovers. The lack of leaves and singing birds stands for the lack of lovers. Nobody young desires the poet, now that she has got older. She has lost those who would love her.
The poem contains images of nature The poem contains images of pleasure and intimate love:
What lips my lips have kissed arms have lain under my head till morning lads that turn to me at midnight with a cry
lonely tree
birds boughs summer
Sound effects
Alliteration [the repetition of first letters]
Note the 3 ws and 2 ls in the following line: What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why
Rhyming
There is a definite rhyming pattern: abbaabba cdedce
Rhythm
Sometimes the rhythm has a natural feeling with the run on lines and simple conversational words.