Importance of Love in Love is Not All and Since feeling is First
“Love” is probably the most frequent and debatable topic as being identified in the arena of poetry. The majority of the best and extremely renowned poets have presented expressed their thoughts regarding love by means of their poems. It is the actual reason that makes the poetry rich and unique. Many of the poets portray the same issue, but they convey its significance with an entirely different viewpoint. Every poet explains love through his unique style and communicates his emotions and concepts involving love in an entirely imaginative and impressive way. There is an example of two poems written on the theme of love, but conveying it with a different approach.
The first poem is titled as “Love is Not All” and was penned by Edna S.V. Millay. Edna was an American romantic poet and scriptwriter and was honored with Pulitzer Prize as an acknowledgment for her fantastic poetry regarding love. Being the third woman to win that prize in that period, Edna was also famous for being an activist and having a number of love affairs. She used Nancy Boyd as a pen name in her poetic work and was declared to have written many best verses of that century.
In Love is Not All, she conveys through the verses that love is not entirety the whole world as it cannot physically cure illness, cannot provide shelter from the rain and cannot help anyone drowning in the water. According to her love, cannot help in the treatment of a fractured bone or it can’t clean the blood. Agreeing to a long list what love cannot do, she signifies that still the person lacking love cannot survive. Edna believes that having no one to love in the world means that a person will remain helpless at the time of need. According to her, once in a life, a person can face a situation to sell his love to get food in order to survive thereby expressing the need for love in one’s life (Sharma 22).
A large number of people have read this poem and the poem is being liked by many individuals who like to read on romantic concepts. Many individuals interpreted the theme of this poem in a way that love is only a minor element in life. They considered the poet’s words in a sense that if love cannot physically provide any basic necessity of life and cannot even save life or cure an injured person than it had no significance in anybody’s life and it should be only up to the level of making friends that can help in time of need. While a few have a different mentality and criticize that the theme of the poem does not correctly interpret the importance of love.
My point of view about the theme behind this poem is a little bit different from other individuals. I take this poem as portraying a great significance of love in life. I interpret the poem’s starting contrasting lines as the poet is empowering love by beginning with that even if it does not provide any physical support but is still significantly important to survive. This point empower theme of love that the individual without the love in life should better die. In the ending words where the poet says that one can be in the situation to sell love for getting meal but the poet ends in her view that she think she will not choose to sell it in any condition. This signifies the importance of love in life (Perry 18).
The other poem portraying the theme of love is “Since feeling is First”. E. E. Cummings wrote it. Edward E. Cummings was a famous poet of America. He was also a well-known artist, novelist, writer, and scriptwriter. He penned about three thousand great poems His area of work also comprised of 2 novels based on autobiographies, about three to four dramas, and numerous essays. He painted a number of beautiful drawings. For such great services, he is reminisced as an outstanding voice in the history of English writings during the twentieth century (Cheng 19).
This poem expresses the significance of love and emotions in an individual’s life. The poet interprets the feeling like the most valuable thing in one’s life. The poet through his words gives preference to feelings over the mind. He claims that people should prefer their sensations to pass their lifespan rather than just taking decisions based on the rationality and arrangement of things. He portrays that regardless of the extent of wisdom an individual has but still a signal of love is more valued. Then he confesses that the many individuals would have loved the lady whom he loved but he expresses himself to be the only one to love her soul rather than just physically. And he portrays that the death cannot end the love (Cheng 31).
The majority of the individuals that read this poem and appreciated it would have been perfect lovers. They understood it in the sense that one should become a fool in love. They think even if a man loves a single lady than he should love her spiritually and take all the decisions based on what they feel to be right. They think nothing to be more important than the happiness of the face of true love. So they should make their love happy by any means.
In my view, love is a great blessing but one should not get involved in it so immensely that he neglects the guidance of his wisdom. If a man will become mad in love and ignore his mind and only follow his heart then, he may involve in any negative act to impress her love. This will not be a good choice. So whenever a man loves somebody he should do it in the real sense but take the decisions based on both the knowledge and feelings. This will help him to avoid misleading on the wrong path.
Work Cited
Sharma, Rajat. "The Wondering Minstrels." : Sonnet: Love Is Not All. Wonderingminstrels, 25
Aug. 2010. Web. 7 Dec. 2014. <http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2001/08/sonnet
love-is-not-all-edna-st-vincent.html>.
Perry, John Oliver. Approaches to the Poem: Modern Essays in the Analysis and Interpretation
of Poetry. San Francisco: Chandler Pub., 1965. Print.
Cheng, Vincent. "“Since Feeling Is First”: In Defense of E.E. Cummings." The Madison Review.
<http://english.wisc.edu/madisonreview/?p=1007>.
