A Critical Analysis of the Poem "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
A sonnet refers to Italian poetic form invented by Giacomo Da Lentini. Sonnet derives from the Italian word sonetto meaning a little song or sound (Miller 1). Two kinds of sonnet exist; the Italian sonnet and Shakespearean sonnets. Italian sonnet has a fundamental break between the last six lines, sestet, and the first eight lines, octave. It has a typical rhyme scheme abbabba cdecde. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “What lips my lips have kissed” is an example of an Italian sonnet.
In “What lips my lips have kissed,” the 1923 sonnet, the Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay narrates of various love affairs that ended in agony and despair as a result of the losses (Naylor and Audrey 67). The poem is an excellent example of a combination of literary concepts to form a complex and meaningful sonnet. It is the poem that tells of how the past happenings have contributed to the poet’s regrets. The readers get a lesson that regrets always come afterwards, and that the present determines the unforeseen future.
Millay incorporated literary concepts including a speaker’s presence, tone, language sounds, vocabulary, structure and figurative language to make the sonnet intricate and significant (Millay 1). To analyze the poem, the starting point should be with the speaker. The poem was written in the first person narrative style. The speaker recalls of the forgotten “loves” that have past. The writing of the poem in first person makes the reader feel the speaker. It makes readers put themselves in the situations of the speaker. The tense in the poem is of concern because all the lines contain words in the past tense with the exception of the last line. The words in the past tense include “kissed” (Millay 1), “sang” (Millay 13) and “unremembered” (Millay 7). When the poet reaches the last line, she suddenly shifts to using the present tense. For instance, she uses the word “sings” (Millay 14). Although it may seem insignificant, the switch from past to present tense illustrates how the past occurrences in the life of the poet have affected the present life. Considering the melancholy vocabulary, we note the sadness in the speaker. The following lines emphasize the gloomy tone in the poem:
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more. (6-8, 13-14)
The different aspects of the sonnet such as the structure, the mood, the turns, and a powerful metaphor portray the poem’s distinct meaning. In the poem are evident two of the principal themes; the themes of loss and change. Change is evident in Millay’s use of the season imagery while loss is evident throughout the entire sonnet, but it is most obvious in the concluding few lines.
The modern Italian sonnet has different parts of the form and content being traditional while others are untraditional. The octave in the sonnet has the traditional Italian sonnet rhyme scheme (Francini 38). However, a variation of the sestet follows and in the final two lines, the poem lacks a rhyming couplet. The untraditional style Millay employs is evident with the use of run-on lines in the octave. The run-on lines make the end rhymes lack in the centre of the sentences. The application of enjambment and caesura constructs a feeling that flows smoothly with Millay’s description of her lovers. The sonnet is untraditional because the poet shows pride in her past for having several lovers. Certainly, this cannot be a theme in a traditional sonnet, which normally portrays and cherishes a single lover.
All these lines show the depression the speaker has undergone, but the last line seems the most distressing because of the comma use. Starting from line 13 to 14, the speaker narrates:
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more. (6-8, 13-14)
The short pause emphasizes the sad tone as the speaker declares that her happiness is lost and seems it will never return. In addition, the speaker has made use of vocabularies that reinforce his or her sadness. The use of such words as “forgotten” (Millay 2), “pain” (Millay 6) and “silent” (Millay 11) serves to emphasize the poet’s sad feelings. The words convey overall gloominess from the beginning of the poem. Furthermore, the sounds of the words emphasize the sad feelings in the lines such as line one and two.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain(line 1-2).
The poet has altered the argument in this sonnet on two different occasions where a turn establishes a small adjustment in the way the ideas flow. Millay provides the description of her experiences with love on a personal level in the first octave (Henderson 47). She is almost telling the readers about her deepest feelings up front in a tangible way. Then, there is a turn between lines eight and nine as it is with all traditional Italian sonnets. The sonnet now has its focus shifting away from the poet as the poet never refers to herself directly. The poet, instead of referring to herself directly makes use of metaphor to do so. Between lines eleven and twelve the sonnet has another turn. Millay repeats the action of addressing herself directly, and this makes the poem return to the style used in the first half (Henderson 48). In this point of the sonnet, Millay glances back at her life, her losses and her love. In lines thirteen and fourteen, Millay effectively joins in the recurrent imagery to the metaphor depicted a few lines earlier.
According to Schürer, the metaphor in the poem is of great significance as it plays a crucial role fetching the readers the shattered emotional state and the abstract representation of Millay (95). The metaphor starts line nine. The poet refers to herself in an indirect way as “the lonely tree.” The poet’s past lovers, according to the metaphor, are represented by the birds while her bed the tree’s boughs represent her bed. The poet remains alone in her bed as a tree is left lonely when the birds leave to the south during the winter.
In general, the sonnet is about love; however, it does not talk through the traditional Petrarchan conceits. Millay has written from a distinct point of view that the readers can relate to with ease. The poem emphasizes the two themes of loss and change. The themes are real, and everyone must have come through them. The use of the sonnet by the poet affects the reader in a personal way. Thus, most readers will read the poem and never fail to compare their experiences about love relationships in some way.
Works Cited
Francini, Antonella. "Sonnet vs. sonnet: The fourteen lines in african american poetry." RSA Journal 14 (2003): 37-66.
Henderson, Diana E. "The Sonnet, Subjectivity, and Gender." The Cambridge Companion to the Sonnet: 46-65.
Millay, Edna St Vincent. The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Random House LLC, 2012.
Miller, Nelson. "Basic Sonnet Forms." from the Cayuse Press ‘Writers Exchange Board’[http://www. sonnets. org/basicforms. htm] (2005).
Naylor, Amanda and Audrey B. WoodTeaching Poetry: Reading and responding to poetry in the secondary classroom. Routledge, 2012. Print.
Schürer, Norbert. "Millay's what Lips my Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why." The Explicator 63.2 (2005): 94-96.
