Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)” explores the tragedy of inevitable loneliness. Much of poetry is considered self expression, and with that notion in mind, and for the sake of this analysis, I will assume that Millay is documenting her own feeling or experience even though it is definitely in the realm of possibility that Millay is speaking from the point of view of an third-party character or separate persona. “Sonnet XLIII” divulges a moment frozen in time of a dismal, pained mother trapped in the snare of nostalgia, reminiscing her children’s company. Initiating the sonnet, Millay synecdochally utilizes abstract body parts to hint at a much more larger idea. For example, Millay
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Every word used is thought-over, concise, and filled with purpose. With that in mind, in “Sonnet XLIII”, Millay refers to her children as “unremembered lads” (7). Unremembered and forgotten are similar in meaning; however, Millay engineers the line to describe lads as ‘unremembered’ because she could not conceivably forget her own children. She constantly is thinking and reminiscing of her children. It is in a mother’s nature to nurture and care for her own. A mother’s bond with a child can last a lifetime, but Millay must do her best not remember, or ‘unremember,’ because the burden of life away from someone who she raised and cared for has become too hard to bear. By the same token, ‘lads’ is employed to create distance between the relationship between mother and child. The term ‘lad’ is also used to refer to someone who is young, like a toddler which only solidifies the notion that Millay is referring to a child. Had Millay substituted ‘lads’ for a more intimate word, the effect would have conflicted with the idea of a mother struggling to cope with lost presence of a beloved child, while counterintuitively making the connection between mother and child stronger which our author is actually trying to weaken. Diction is something authors stress over in poetry and it is no mistake …show more content…
In reference to her children, Millay proclaims “[They will] not again / ...turn to me at midnight with a cry. / Thus in winter stands the lonely tree” (7-9). Seasonal symbolism is motif littered throughout poetry from the last few centuries and often can be interpreted to symbolize the point in life of the person that the season is being compared to. In this case, Millay is comparing herself to “the lonely tree” (9) in winter which, if we take the previous idea of seasonal symbolism into account, refers to Millay succumbing to her old age. The sonnet continues “Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one” (10). At surface level, we now know the tree feels lonely because absence of birds, which presumably is due to the fact that it is winter. Just as birds must eventually leave the branches of trees they nest in in order to migrate, Millay’s children must eventually leave her arms and company in order to pursue a life of their own. The imagery of a lonely tree symbolizes how Millay is rooted down and seemingly stuck, unable to attempt to oppose life’s inevitable change, as time passes her by leaving her falling into an eternal abyss of despair and loneliness. In the final couplet of “Sonnet XLIII,” it is stated that “I only know that summer sang in me / a little while, that in me sings no more,” (13-14) and the usage of summer helps juxtapose the previous notion
Every word used is thought-over, concise, and filled with purpose. With that in mind, in “Sonnet XLIII”, Millay refers to her children as “unremembered lads” (7). Unremembered and forgotten are similar in meaning; however, Millay engineers the line to describe lads as ‘unremembered’ because she could not conceivably forget her own children. She constantly is thinking and reminiscing of her children. It is in a mother’s nature to nurture and care for her own. A mother’s bond with a child can last a lifetime, but Millay must do her best not remember, or ‘unremember,’ because the burden of life away from someone who she raised and cared for has become too hard to bear. By the same token, ‘lads’ is employed to create distance between the relationship between mother and child. The term ‘lad’ is also used to refer to someone who is young, like a toddler which only solidifies the notion that Millay is referring to a child. Had Millay substituted ‘lads’ for a more intimate word, the effect would have conflicted with the idea of a mother struggling to cope with lost presence of a beloved child, while counterintuitively making the connection between mother and child stronger which our author is actually trying to weaken. Diction is something authors stress over in poetry and it is no mistake …show more content…
In reference to her children, Millay proclaims “[They will] not again / ...turn to me at midnight with a cry. / Thus in winter stands the lonely tree” (7-9). Seasonal symbolism is motif littered throughout poetry from the last few centuries and often can be interpreted to symbolize the point in life of the person that the season is being compared to. In this case, Millay is comparing herself to “the lonely tree” (9) in winter which, if we take the previous idea of seasonal symbolism into account, refers to Millay succumbing to her old age. The sonnet continues “Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one” (10). At surface level, we now know the tree feels lonely because absence of birds, which presumably is due to the fact that it is winter. Just as birds must eventually leave the branches of trees they nest in in order to migrate, Millay’s children must eventually leave her arms and company in order to pursue a life of their own. The imagery of a lonely tree symbolizes how Millay is rooted down and seemingly stuck, unable to attempt to oppose life’s inevitable change, as time passes her by leaving her falling into an eternal abyss of despair and loneliness. In the final couplet of “Sonnet XLIII,” it is stated that “I only know that summer sang in me / a little while, that in me sings no more,” (13-14) and the usage of summer helps juxtapose the previous notion