Thursday, July 31, 2008

Love is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

87 comments:

ncamacho said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay is a true feminist. She believes that women do have the right to choose with whom they want to be. Just like she explains in "A visit to the Asylum", Millay says that if a man wants to be with a woman, then he is the one that is going to look for her. She says that now that woman are starting to stand up for themselves, we are not going to be the ones going after men and doing what they say. But does she believe in true love? Yes, she does. Like she says in "Love is not All", Millay believes that even though people sometimes try to convince themselves that love does not exist, or that it is not everything, they are wrong. Love IS all, and it is because of this that we sometimes suffer. In order to have a true eternal love, it has to be from both parties. If the man is not willing to show how he truly feels, the relationship is not going to be a very pleasant one. Like in "An Ancient Gesture", woman are usually the ones who truly express how they feel, resulting in the real tears, and not the ones that the man in this poem cried: tears like Ulysses.

mpmiranda said...

In her poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay has redefined the meanings of love, relationships and roles within society. In her poem “Love is not all” she begins by stating that love is neither a necessity of life nor a form of salvation; “it is not meat nor drink nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; nor yet a floating spar to men that sink”. In these lines she is somewhat diminishing the value of love; however shortly after she states that humans need companionship and the security of love. At this moment she openly contradicts her previous view on love by saying that it is indeed a necessity in life. Therefore, by expressing that love is not important she is ultimately saying that it is essential. In her other poem “An Ancient Gesture” Millay presents true fidelity, commitment and a redefinition of roles through the mythological character of Penelope. All throughout the poem we see the commitment Penelope had for her husband Ulysses and how even though she sometimes might have gotten sad and tired of waiting for him, she remained faithful. Furthermore, at times when she cried out of frustration she expressed the “ancient gesture” and unconsciously she showed it to her husband because he learned to feel from her. Here, we see a different role for both men and women; women as teachers of men; and men expressing their emotions. In Millay’s poem “A Modern Declaration” she also expresses the commitment of love. The speaker is a woman who states that even though she has gone through different experiences in her life, most of which have been negative, her love for her partner is imperishable; “no matter what party is in power; no matter what temporarily expedient combination f allied interests wins the war; shall love you always”. This “declaration” is very inspirational and makes the reader question whether if he/she was in a similar situation would the love they feel remain the same. Finally in “A Visit to the Asylum” Millay expresses a disturbed relationship where men yearn for and desire a young innocent girl. They constantly watched and tempted her however, towards the end of the poem we see how she has transformed into a strong-minded girl. She knows that these men do not determine who she is and she does not need to succumb to their will. If they desire her, they will need to come to her for she has decided she will remain truthful to herself. By stating this, Edna St. Vincent Millay presents a new view of women as strong and independent; capable of taking control of their lives.

Anonymous said...

Through her poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay shows different views of love. For example, in "Love is not all" she contradicts herself in a way. She states that love is the greatest feeling of all, later she says there are other important things in life. Also, love is worthless to many people, yet people strive to have love and would give anything to have it...I think she changes her mind and realizes that love is worth more then any object in the world. In "An Ancient Gesture", she shows how couples express their feelings. The man is not willing to show how he feels, while women are usually talking about what they think and cry because they feel like it. Unlike the man in this poem, which didn't cry for real. Moreover, in "Modern Declaration" she shows how she can be faithful. She declares she can love forever, she has stood up against differing pressures that sought to kill her love. Finally, in "A Visit to the Asylum" you see how people, men always called to the girl, and expected her to come, and at the end she tells them to come to her instead. She won't be as easy to them, as before, now, if they want her they have to go to her.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent's poems express the most sincere and unconditional love. In "Love is not all" she contradicts herself by saying love alone won't let you survive on Earth, but at the end realizes it's still as important as every human necesity. The narrator also says she would nevers trade love for anything in the world and mentions even the importance of its memory. In "An ancient gesture", Edna shows a different but real side to marriage. She compares the narrators sincere tears to the deceitful cry of a man from Greek mithology. With this poem Edna critisizes a man's carelesness to a woman's commitment to marriage and her complete fidelity. The narrator waits, faithfully and commited to their relationship, for her husband while he's at war and she doesn't even know if he's coming back. In a "Modern declaration" the narrator promises to love her partner truthfully no matter who knew or threatened. regardless the type of party and politic, she would pledge her loyalty towards her love. This also shows the commitment of women to their companions and what's expected of them. Men in these last two poems do not seem to satisfy their expactions and give not even half of the commitment and faithfulness back in return.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay has a lot to say about love and couples as she shows us in the poems "Love is not all", "An ancient gesture", "A modern declaration" and "A visit to the Asylum". "Love is not all" sets forth the topic of wether or not love is worth it, weather or not love is truly as or more important than the basic necesities. "An ancient gesture" criticizes a woman's role in a relationship vs that of the man, and how the woman is the one that truly suffers for the relationship. "A modern declaration" expresses the feelings of new kinds of loves and affections that won't be recieved lightly by society and how those couples endure and live on in love. "A visit to the asylum" shows a young woman taking the reigns on a man and woman relation, a very feminist ideal. She is a feminist, she gives women power in place of keeping them down under men.

Anonymous said...

In "Love is Not All" Edna St. Vincent Millay present a different view on love. At first, she tries to be practical and finds all the things that love is NOT. Basically, she tells us that love cannot fulfill the basic necessities for life like food or pay the rent. Love cannot heal and ease discomfort either. Then, she goes on to say what possible things might make her compromise her love. Like for example the feeling of being pinned down and restricted. She might give up love for peace, or exchange the memory of what she and her lover had just experienced for some physical necessity and yet...maybe not at all. The last line gives love a "second chance" and some hope. Basically what the poem is trying to say is that even though it doesn't cover all the basic necessities of our life we would never exchange the feeling for something else.
In "An Ancient Gesture" Millay talks about how women are always the most sacrificed in a relationship. Penelope cries real tears but Odysseus or Ulysses, cries as a gesture or a formality. The poet uses words like tradition and gesture to
describe Odyssesus' crying. The "assembled throng" is the crowd of people that gathered to see their king and queen together. Ulysseus is crying just for the crowd; while the woman (who has the real feelings) has the strength to cry alone by herself and then wipe those tears off and move on.
In "Modern Declaration" the author talks about real and ever-lasting love which is her own love for a man. She talks about how she has been faithful and how even though she could have gone through many difficult times in her life she still remembers her love for him. To me, this poem may be a critic to a man. Like in "A Modern Declaration" she may be saying to us that women are alway the most committed to a relationship while men disguise their comitment.
"A Visit to the Asylum" talks about something very different. To me this is poem criticizes society (presented as the people in the asylum) and their obsession with sensuality. The patients in the asylum are the men that wait for a sensual woman to come to them and please them St. Vincent Mallay goes against this and expresses that men are the ones that have to go and search for them. If they want them they must search for them and go through some troubles themselves. Women are not the only ones that have to suffer for a love.

Anonymous said...

In her poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay wants to explain and express to us her feelings and views about couples were the woman talks about her loved one. In “Love Is Not All” the woman speaker explains to us that love is not easy, but she won’t give up. Love can cause us many pains and sorrows and it doesn’t cure anything in this world, but she is willing to put up with all of it throughout her life, and support that entire heavy wait on top of her. The speaker also mentions that she could just give it up and trade her love for something else, but she won’t. In “An Ancient Gesture” we can see the theme of commitment and being faithful. In this poem, the speaker’s husband, Ulysses, has been away for years, but she, Penelope, doesn’t know were. That hasn’t stopped her. All these years Penelope has kept faithful and hopeful that someday Ulysses will return to her arms. Unfortunately, what she doesn’t know is that she did cry, suffered, and waited for years, but he never felt like that in the years he was away. In “Modern Declaration” the speaker, a woman, expresses how she will always love her husband no matter what comes in her way. She also says that nothing can confuse her of what she feels for him. She clearly states “…Shall love you always.” Also, she has never rejected her love in front of anybody or in any other circumstances; there is no excuse for her love to disappear. Last but not least, the poem “A Visit to the Asylum” is different compared to the previous three. It is the case; every man in town is absolutely attracted to her. They are attracted to her beauty, her hair, etc. and they even bring her a beautiful kind of flower, the asters. The men keep calling out for her to come were they are, but she responds in saying that they should come to her, not the other way around. In this poem, the woman is standing up for herself and is making the point that if a man was really in love with her for the right reasons, he would act and go to her without being asked and show her his commitment to the relationship. In these poems, the women are expecting to be treated and loved the same way they have always been to they’re loved ones; with fidelity, commitment, and love.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay is truly one of a kind. Not just in "Love is Not All", but in other poems Edna expresses her views on love, which go from true love and fidelity to obsession. In "Love is Not All", Edna is stating somewhat of a contradiction when speaking of love. She begins by enumerating everything that love cannot do, such as "fill the thickened lung with breath nor clean the blood", stating exactly what the titles implies, that love is not all. However, as the poem continues, she then has a change in opinion by saying that even though love is "useless" in this situations, it is really everything, and she wouldn't trade it for anything. We can see a connection between this poem and her other love poems "Modern Declaration" and "An Ancient Gesture". In both of these poems, we can see true love that will not be traded for anything else either, no matter the circumstances. For example, in "Modern Declaration", she speaks of the ability to love a person forever. The speaker in the poem states that she has shown allegiance to loving other things in her life and has never wavered, and has overcome pressures that would kill her love. Here she shows her loyalty and faithfulness no matter the hardship. Similarly, in "An Ancient Gesture', Penelope is faithful to her husband despite the grief and the loneliness she felt while he was gone. I believe that in these poems Edna St. Vincent Millay is showing us that truly loving someone and being faithful to them is possible, even with the hardship and pressure one can encounter. In contrast to the poems i have discussed, "A Visit to the Asylum", Edna does not speak of true love in this poem. Instead, she speaks of obsession,quite the opposite of true love. Men yearn for the little girl, not feeling anything but desire. Even though she speaks of this, in a way she goes against this obsession by making the girl at the end realize that she will no longer return to be an object of their pleasure, instead she says, "You come see me!". So, Edna goes against this obsession, by writing of a woman that will stand up for herself: a new independent woman.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent is a woman who throughout her poems wants the reader to visualize her main purpose by expressing her thoughts, beliefs and feelings.

For instance, in the poem “Love is not all” what she is trying to explain is that love is important in life. In other words, is all and it can not be replace. For that reason, throughout the whole poem she gives examples such as “Love can’t be meat nor drink” and “Nor slumber nor a root against a rain.” Also, this shows us that she desires love in her life.
In the other hand, another of Vincent’s poems “An Ancient Gesture” we see how the theme of fidelity can be seen. It begins with this housewife, the wife of Ulysses, who weeps all day waiting for him. Still while waiting she was a firmed strong woman even though she had some suitors who were interested in her. For that reason, this let us visualized how faithful she was to her husband. Furthermore, how Ulysses could never imagined the expectations of his wife, who was really worry for him. In addition, Vincent presents couples as hard, struggling and impossible to understand at the beginning. Moreover, how later on it will reveal their feelings and desires in life.
As a matter of fact, this leads to the poem “Modern Declaration” where commitment can be seen in the woman’s love toward this man. She says “No matter what temporarily expedient combination of allied interests win the war, shall love you always”. The readers can quote that she will always love him forever and will never hide her affections.
Last, in “A Visit to the Asylum” Millay presents the expectations of men and women very directly. It begins with this girl, who is a beautiful girl with a wonderful red hair, who has a lot of attracted men who are interested in her. As you can see, men are wrong about women. They expected women to fall in love immediately and reveal their love. Fortunately, women resulted in this poem as challenging and hard to get. The reader can infer that this girl wanted a real man who respected her and that will have to work hard to conquer her love.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay, in her poetry, presents love in its purest form. In "An Ancient Gesture" Edna demonstrates the genuine love and commitment of a wife to her husband through the greatest showing of emotion, crying. This wife cries while in wait for her husband and reflects upon an ancient Greek couple, Penelope and Ulysses. With the allusion to this couple, Millay redefines the role wife and husband by showing how the woman "wears her heart on her sleeve" and leaves her self vulnerable,a true testament to her love, while the man, like Ulysses, does not expose his true emotions because of fear. In the poem "Modern Declaration" she displays a pledge of loyalty and faith that is unaffected by external influences or personal interests. Moreover, the poetic voice states that her love is too genuine to be changed by anything, "no matter what party is in power...", because what she holds in her heart is nothing less than true love. Finally, in the poem "Love is Not All", Millay uses a contradiction to show that although love is not all it may be more. Millay begins by stating that love does not provide any of the physical necessities needed to survive, "it is not meat nor drink". However, she continues on to say that human are driven to death for the mere lack of love,"Yet many a man is making friends with death even as I speak, for lack of love alone", thus implying that love is much more important than physical necessity, it is an emotional and physiological necessity. Although love cannot solely keep a person alive, it can entirely keep a person from death and that is more than can be said for any other thing. Furthermore, Millay reinforces her beliefs with a question she implies with her closing statements. Would you trade love for anything else? Millay firmly answers no, because love unlike anything else is eternal, making it "much more than all".

Anonymous said...

In the poems written by feminist writer Edna Vincent Millay, we can see many characteristics and elements of couples. First of all, in her poem Love is Not All we can see how Millay portrays love as a necessary feeling in our life in an interesting way. Millay first states how love is not technically needed, as it does not provide food, water, oxygen, or anything to keep us living. Ironically, she then starts stating how we actually do need love in our lives to live, and that she wouldn't trade love for the things that one technically needs to live. In An Ancient Gesture we can see how commitment and fidelity are portrayed by Millay. In this poem we see how the woman misses her husband and awaits for his return. This situation is compared to the mythological one between Penelope and Ulysses and even though she cries due to her situation she still remain committed and faithful to him. In Modern Declaration we can see how fidelity is portrayed by Millay. This poem shows a woman who truly loves someone. Throughout the poem we see that she states how people have tried to destroy her love for him but that her love is eternal and that nothing can change that, showing how faithful and committed he is. In A Visit to the Asylum we can see how the expectations of men and women are portrayed by Millay. At first we can see how the men in the poem desire the young girl as they like to touch her hair and offer her gifts. We can see how men treat her as an object without thinking about her. Then the girl suddenly takes a turn as she realizes that if this men desire her she shouldn't be taking their order and letting herself be used, and that instead they should come to her if they really want her.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay poems show how love is expressed in relationships. In her poem, "Love is not All" she contradicts herself by saying that love is all because it is a necessity in all humans, just like food is. In "An Ancient Gesture", she speaks of a relationship in which a man does not truly care for his wife and the wife is the one that suffers because the man does not express his feelings of love towards her. In her poem "A Modern Declaration", the woman says that she love for her partner will always be present, no matter what happens. This shows the faithfulness and her commitment to love. Finally, in "A Visit to the Asylum", the woman is admired by many men, but they do not come to her, so she decides that if the men really desire her, they should show their love towards her.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay, in her time, was a revolutionary woman. Through her poetry she expressed how she was open with her sexuality and her thoughts on love, that were so different compared to how the world thought back then, and was just beggining to open up. In her poem "Love Is Not All" she uses irony in her title to tell us that love is really love. And in her poem "A Modern Declaration" she never told the person she loved that she actually loved him, but explain that she will forever love him. In my personal opinion, this is hard to believe, and makes me get to the conclusion that a good poet must also be a good liar because she was known to have many love affairs during her love life and if she truely loved whoever that person was she would have never have sexual affairs with other people or be unfaithful. Maybe this is her way of being open about her sexuality?

xbexanotherx said...

Many people believe that love is all, some don’t believe in love at all. In her poem “Love is Not All,” Edna St. Vincent Millay contradicts herself because first she says that love is not all, but in the end she says that she wouldn’t trade love for peace or even food. In her poem “Modern Declaration” the speaker says that she never declared that she will always love him/her. But in the last verse she states that she shall love him/her always. This poem is open to interpretation. On the other hand, in Millay’s poem “An Ancient Gesture”, the theme is clearer. The speaker compares herself to Penelope, from Homer’s The Odyssey. The speaker cries, just like Penelope. Penelope remained faithful to her husband, Ulysses, even though he had been away for many years. This shows a woman’s commitment to her love and her lover. The speaker, like Penelope, cried out of helplessness, because there’s “simply nothing else to do.” In another of her poems, “A Visit to the Asylum,” Millay explores another theme. The speaker appears to be a little girl. Men call her and she goes to them, they give her gifts and stuff, and she succumbs to all the praise. She knows that she is always being watched, but she seems to like this. In the last stanza, the little girl tells the men to come see her, as if she won’t come to them anymore. In that last stanza Millay criticizes the expectation some men have that women will always come to them.
In her poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay expresses many themes and never fails to give us something to think and talk about.

Anonymous said...

The feminist author,Edna St. Vincent Millay, has shown us through her poems different ways in which love can be viewed through the eyes of a woman. She shows how a woman can love throught her lifetime, since she wrote basically about her experiences of love and how she felt about the it.
In her poem "Love is not All", the author starts critizing the feeling of love, like saying that it doesnt fufill the basic necessities of life and sometimes it doesnt even make us feel better. Later, she contradicts herself and states that love is all and that humans need love and what it can bring to a human being, no matter if it doesnt fufill other things in life that can be later resolved. In "An Ancient Gesture", the author states how a woman that is in love can feel so much for a man and reject other things in life (like other partners), due to her fidelity towards her loved one, while making reference to Penelope, Ulysses wife in The Odyssey. She shows through the lady in the poem, that a woman, even though can get tired from waiting for a man, can still be faithful, if she is trully in love. She also critizes on the poem, the men that are deceitful, those who cry to get attention and dont cry for real, like woman do, even though the woman showed the man, how to cry. In the poem "Modern Declaration", the speaker talks about her own declaration towards love and that she will stand by it firmly at the end, no matter what. Even though that she has had bad experiences that could have altered the way she could feel about love, she will still be faithful to the feeling and her partner. In conclusion, she states in her poems that women feel true love towards their partner always no matter if she is the figure in the relationship that suffers. Women love above all things and wish to bring companionship and affection to their lover.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincet Millay wrote about different types of feelings and emotions that one feels one being in love. In her poem, “Love is Not All”, she expresses how love is such an important part of a person’s life. Later in the poem, she contradicts herself by saying there are other things more important than being in love. However, we cannot live without feeling love. It is a powerful force that drives us and gives us determination to go on in life. It doesn’t matter what type of love it is, if it is present in our lives it will be a major influence in everything we do. In her poem “An Ancient Gesture”, she presents the loyalty and fidelity that must be present in true love. She uses the character of Penelope, from Homer’s The Odyssey, as the greatest example of being loyal to your lover. She spent almost 20 years without her lover and every time a new suitor approached her, she rejected him. Being doing so, Penelope taught her lover how to express his emotions. Penelope showed him that it is ok to cry and to express his emotions. She contradicts herself from her other poem because in this poem the main idea is that love us the main focus of life. In her poem “A Modern Declaration”, the speaker is declaring her love towards her lover. She is so committed to him, that for her it doesn’t matter what is occurring in the world. She has loved him ever since she was a little girl, and will continue loving him. This poem is an inspiration to anyone that is feeling in love because it will make him or her want to be as committed to his/her lover as the speaker in the poem. Last but not least, in her poem “A Visit to the Asylum”, she is presenting a man that has fallen in love with a young girl. This situation is disturbing, but the girl has does not let herself be manipulated. The man taught it was going to be easy, but he was mistaken. She is expressing, how women have begun to stand up for themselves. Women are now not permitting men to manipulate them as they did before. Millay is documenting this change in society with her poems. This is one way that Edna St. Vincent Millay changed literature with her poems.

Anonymous said...

In her poetry Edna St. Vincent proves and states that there is more than one type of ove and also that love is not the only thing. At the same time she states the human disability to live without love, without affection. Take for example "Love is not all", in which she is in the gray line between being a non believer in love and a true romantic. Also another aspect we can appreciate from her poetry is that she shows us how, in many cases, it is a woman's job to teach a man to love. She shows us how love may have well been birthed in the womb of a womans heart. She wants us to KNOW that love is merely just a gesture and it is truly not ancient. Also, she gives us through her poetry the idea of women standing up for themselves. In "A Visit to the Asylum" she transmits to us the feminist ideal of a woman having the right not only to choose a mate, but also to flirt with men. The ideal of women who want to be looked at and searched for and are not afraid to admit it. So in conclusion, we see that in Millay's poetry we see trascendental ideals of the feminist movement and more. We see how she admits that even though love is not all it is a big thing. A thing that as time passes is considered as stupid because in todays society love is becoming a minor thing in marriages and all relationships.

Anonymous said...

The feminist author Edna St. VIncent Millay really expresses very strong and sometimes contradictory views on love and relationships in her poems. As we can see in her poem "Love is not All" she describes the things that love isn't. It isn't food nor shelter ; the author seems to be expressing that love is not necessary...it is "not all". But truly it is, because without it men have no hope and this is what brings all the negative things to Earth, this lack of love. So, in this poem love is an essential element. Also, in the poem "A Modern Declaration" we can see the strongness of the love she feels, her true fidelity when she says "that i shall love you always, no matter what party is in power..." In this poem love is also essential and in her case, unconditional. In a similar case we see her poem "An Ancient Gesture". This poem not only presents love but also the suffering that love may bring. It presents a woman crying and this woman compares her tears to Penelope, the wife of Ulysses of The Odyssey who would cry due to the absence of her husband and the love she felt for him. The author really demonstrates thr fidelity this character felt and demonstrated the crying as an acient gesture. Ancient why? Because it has always happened or because women are stronger now? Knowing Millay's feminisit tendencies we can assume both. The poem also contrasts men and women's approach to love because Ulysses is presented as bearing tears only due to convenience, not because of true feelings. On another level we see "A Visit to the Asylum" which is more about women taking charge and being more decisive and dominant in the relationships with men. Millay really expresses her feminism and her wish for women to pull ahead and make the men come to them. She seems to beleive that love is good and essential to our lives, but that to reach it we no longer have to live at men's feet; rather the opposite, we have the right to choose.

Anonymous said...

Edna ST. Vincent Millay was a strong woman who believed that women were more than just sexual objects for the whim of men. She was a feminist who stood up for women everywhere through her poetry. Edna St. Vincent Millay gave a new perspective to the roles of women and relationships according to society's standards. In " A visit to the Asylum" Millay states that women are now free to chose whoever they want to be with and that now they aren't going to settle for less than what they want. Men are now going to have to get used to the idea that women aren't their puppets and they are going to have to work for a woman's love. Through her poetry she presents her views of love; in "Love is not All", Millay begins by stating that love is not really necessary in order to survive, she says it doesn't provide shelter, or nourishment or even fixes fractured bones; she is undermining the power of love, saying that we don't really need it. But quickly after Millay contradicts herself by saying that humans need companionship and that many men die symbolically from broken hearts or even literally by committing suicide for lack of love. She completely and openly contradicts herself going from saying that love is not necessary to saying that love is essential and she wouldn't exchange it for anything. In " An Ancient Gesture" Millay presents a different love relationship between Penelope and Ulysses. She presents Penelope as completely committed to Ulysses even when things got hard. Penelope sometimes had to cry out of frustration and this action of crying out presents the "ancient gesture" and by this gesture she showed her husband how to "feel". Millay shows a relationship of dependence in which the woman is actually a teacher and men are beginning to show their true emotions. But the act of crying can be seen in another perspective in which men just cry in order to "comfort" women or just to create an appearance while women really feel their emotions and can cry alone, be strong and just move on. Another view of love is "A Modern Declaration" in which Millay shows how committed she is to her love. She declares she can love forever, she can withstand any odds in order to be with the person she loves. declaration towards love and that she will stand by it firmly to the end, no matter what. In the poem Millay states that even though she may have had bad experiences that could have changed the way she felt about love, she will remain faithful to the feeling of love and to her loved one. In the end Millay presents many different views of love but shows that women always love for real and that their love is lasting and women would do anything for love because love is a necessity.

Anonymous said...

As a feminist writer, Edna St. Vincent Millay expresses her views in couples through poetry. In one of her poems, Love Is Not All, Millay shows how sensitive women are on the theme of love. By stating that “love is not all”, she presents all the physical indispensable material that love cannot provide. But yet, the poetic voice challenge this by saying she wouldn’t give up love. In other words, one cannot live only with love, but one cannot live without it. The same theme of love valued by woman can be seen in her other poem, An Ancient Gesture. In this poem, the wife is crying for maybe the lost of her husband, this shows how vulnerable woman are to the lost of their loved ones. That not only prove the loyalty woman have in their relationship but also the bounder less love, that love will live on even though part of the relationship is not present. Last but not least, in Modern Declaration, the message is clear, she will love him always, and she will remain faithful to him.

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, Edna St. Vincent expresses the rawest form of love and life in her poems. I say this, not in a bad way, but in a good way actually. I say it's the rawest form because she presents what she sees and what she feels about love, just as she sees and feels it; no adapting it to the modern society, no placing it in another context so that the reader can understand, none of that; she simply writes about how she expresses and feels love. As seen in the four poems you asked us to make reference to, love can be interpreted in different ways and by different people, depends the situation. For example, in the poem from this blog, "Love is Not All", she uses the title ironically because she says that maybe love isn't biologically important for the human body or materialistically important for humans, yet so many die because they lack it and so many more live to seek it and cherish it. She says that it would be possible for her to trade her love for something else if she ever needed it, but that she chooses not to because she finds love to be much more important. Another type of love is used in her poem, "Modern Declaration". From the context of the story and the analysis from class we know that the poetic voice is most likely a prostitute during a time of war. It is another type of love because this is more like a temporary love, or a superficial love, which she seems to have adapted to her lifestyle in order to go on with her profession. That "love" she feels towards her clients is necessary in order for her to excel in her profession, as well as to assure she doesn't live unhappily with herself. In her poem, "Visit to the Asylum", the author turns her attention more towards a woman's identity because she tells of a little girl who is not so little anymore who remembers having been used sexually as a child by many people, and once she discovers herself she has the self-respect to say that if they want to have her, they must go look for her and do something to "earn" her because she isn't just going to go to them. In the last of the four poems, "An Ancient Gesture", the author points out the significance of women and the female presence in the lives of men. The poetic voice tells us that just as a woman cries with true feeling when her husband has gone, and she has nothing else to do, that woman's husband learned to also feel that emotion and truly cry, because his wife has "taught" him that. Veigas.

Fran. said...

Edna St. Vincent MIllay, in her poems, is telling us different interpretations of love and life and what is needed and what is thought to be needed. In her poem "Love is not all" she says at the beggining that love is not necessary in order to live, but at the end, she thinks things through and honestly feels that love is not necessary but it is essential for the human mind in order to become full, complete, and in order for one to have lived a complete life.
In Milay's poem " An ancient Gesture" she expresses commitment and fidelity through the character of Penelope. Inthe poem, Penelope lies waiting for her love, Ulysses, therefore expressing love, fidelity, and commitment. But when she cried out because of frustration, she lies undesperate for her husband to come back, and this is the ancient gesture, the one that women are the teachers of men.
The commitment of love is also expressed in " A Modern devlaration" by Edna St. Vincent Millay" In this poem the speaker talks about all the negatige things that she had come through, but even though all of these things, she still has love, and her partner which is everlasting.
In conclusion, in the poem " A Visit to the Assylum" Millay talks about how dessire and obsession comes in collapsation with love. A man dessireing to be with young girls is the example this poem presents, and in this poem a woman is presented that will stand up for herself and be independent.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay emphasizes on couples and love in all of the poems analyzed in class. In “An Ancient Gesture” we can see a couple in which the woman is the one giving her all for the relationship and the man just doesn’t care. The woman portrayed in the poem remains there worrying and waiting for him while he is probably being unfaithful and not even thinking about her. She rejects other men because she remains faithful to him and hopes he will come back. We can also see how the man, compared to Ulysses, only cries in front of others falsely and the woman has true tears because she really does love him. In “A Modern Declaration” we can see how a woman is truly committed to love her significant other and can remain faithful towards that feeling of love no matter under what circumstances she is in. She demonstrates how she her love can remain unchanged forever and how she can overcome obstacles that will try to tear her love apart or do her harm. In “Love Is Not All” we see how at the beginning she says love is not all and that it is not a necessity. She degrades the value of love and criticizes how people think of love as everything. After this she contradicts herself and says that humans do need love and that it is indeed a necessity. This contradiction reinforces the fact that love is all. Edna St. Vincent Millay portrays feminism in all her poems because as you can see, in “An Ancient Gesture” and “Modern Declaration” the woman is the one who truly loves and remains faithful either to love or to her partner. Men are portrayed as unfaithful and careless towards love. As we can see she really enjoys the theme of true love and faithfulness.

Anonymous said...

What does this author say about couples, love, fidelity, commitment, and expectations of men and women in these poems? Your analysis must make reference to: "Love Is Not All", "An Ancient Gesture", "Modern Declaration", and "Visit to the Asylum".

In "Love Is Not All", Millay expresses in the beggining that love cannot cover life's basic necessities such as food, shelter and oxygen. Nevertheless, it is a contradiction because towards the end she says that she couldn't live without it and that she wouldnt trade it for anything. So, love IS all and we DO need it.

In "An Ancient Gesture" we can see Penelope's true feelings towards Ulysses's unfaithfulness. In this poem a major problem for couples is explored: unfaithfulness. Although we know it's true Ulysses committed adultery with Cicero (we can see how men are driven by seduction here) who trully cries from her heart is Penelope. Men just portray a fake image when it comes to trying to make other people believe their FAKE stories. They just want to preserve their reputation although they know they did something wrong. This happens to a lot of couples. Women many times are tricked into what they expect from men to be supporting and faithful .. but we often get a completely different image from them, unlike from what we have been already taught. In "Modern Declaration" love is unconditional and irrevocable. No matter what happens she will always love him and we can see her commitment towards this deep love. In "A Visit to the Asylum", Millay expresses a slight feminist view of love.. If a man likes a woman, he should go for it.. not wait for the woman to do all the work by herself. As we can see, the author truly believes in love although women's expectations of love are often mislead by everyday reality. Men OFTEN pretend to be something they're not and should always show themselves how they are no matter what, only then a woman can truly fall in love and be satisfied. This goes both parts *

Wramos said...

We are presented with Edna St. Vincent Millay. One of the most feminist witters I have ever witnessed and yet she explains and expresses her feelings through her poems with such powerful emotions. In "Love is not all" she starts out portraying that there are more important things in life than love but as she goes on writing we can see that in the end she contradicts herself because she has realized along the way of her writing that people crave to be with other people. It is a necessity to feel love because if not, it will just make anyone go mad and even suicidal. Love is a powerful emotion and it must be in everyone. In "A Modern Declaration", we can see the power of love through the woman who never deny her love towards the man. She is loyally towards her love one and she never seems to deny her feelings but embraces it and she is constantly showing her love towards him because for her love is important because it brings happiness. But sometimes love can bring pain and sorrow such as in "An Ancient Gesture". Penelope is waiting patiently for her love one to return to her and she is loyal and will not cheat on him because she loves him and she will not betray him. But after so many years of waiting she can start getting desperate and suffer because she wants to know where he is. She wants to be near him but she always faithful and hopes for him to make a quick return. This in some cases can lead to obsession such as in "A visit to the Asylum". Society admires this girl and this is a time where women have finally obtained the opportunity to stand for themselves and make stand on who a women truly is. Women are hard to understand because men have not embraced women thoughts. This poem presents an escape for women.

Anonymous said...

Through Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poetry, humanity is able to comprehend the different portrayals of love. First of all, in her poem “Love is not all” one can see how love is redefined. She states the triviality of love, contradicting her point of view later on, by saying that love is all. One can appreciate how ironic this poem may be, and how it makes the human conscience evaluate the duality between the physical need and the emotional need, whether love can fulfill or not our desires. Moreover, these poems manifest the true essence of love, which relays on the understanding of a couple. Furthermore, Millay’s poem “Modern Declaration”, states the commitment within a relationship, another concept to be considered. In my opinion, this poem portrays love in a more spiritual way. It states magnitude of the word love, and how one should be loyal to that sentiment. Additionally, it shows how the love that exists between them is eternal, no matter the circumstances that they may encounter. In her poem, “An Ancient Gesture”, the author portrays the true meaning of fidelity. Fidelity needs to be understood as one of endurance, acceptance and patience. Millay utilizes the allusion to Penelope, a character of the Odyssey, which is a wife who waits twenty years for her husband to return being completely faithful to him. This allusion portrays the intensity with which Millay characterizes the concept of fidelity. We observed how this character is able to endure and overcome time, as once Penelope did. Finally, in Millay’s poem, “A Visit to the Asylum”, one can develop the theme of the subconscious of disturbed individuals; a typical characteristic of the “Roaring Twenties”. This poem emphasizes the need of women to claim their space, a space that has always been occupied by men. In this poem the girl who is desired by the male figures, is the manifestation of women innocence; an innocence that is transformed over time into an ability of self-defense. At the end of the poem we can appreciate how this girl has become truthful to herself, rather than to society. She shows humanity how women need to show men that they have a place and a right, and how its time to change the history of women, being the men the ones in charge of going after the women. Millay’s poetry gives women an important place within literature, a place to be respected and treasured. We can visualize now, that even though a couple is supposed to be of mutual and equal understanding, women are most of time the ones to endure and sacrifice for their love. As you can see, Millay’s poetry gives women a new focus within the social roles expected from them.

luis"rey"bevilacqua said...

Edna Millay talks about real love. In 'Love is Not All' she completely contradicts her title saying how love IS really all and how people would give anything to have it true. In 'An Ancient Gesture' she talks about how women truly feel love but sometimes men can be emotionally lying by not really crying but only faking it while women really know how to cry and feel the love. In 'A VIsit to the Asylum' she talks about how now it is time for men to show respect to women and go look for them instead of women being men's tails. How now they need to be the ones to throw themselves out for love and show they really care. Also, in 'Modern Declaration' she proclaims and promises her complete and faithful love to her partner. She tells him she will always be by his side and preaches this true love that she urges will be returned.

Anonymous said...

Edna’s St. Vincent Millay’s history gives her the tools, courage, and nerve to speak her mind, for good and…controversial. The 4 poems analyzed in class are examples of this, filtered to the topics of relationships. “Love is not all” tells contradicts the common idea that you cant live without love. She says that it does not feed you nor does it place a roof over your head. At the end of the harsh critique, she states that although she can sell her love for her loved one for food or shelter, she doesn’t think she would…but she CAN. This is a real down to earth view of love that I like a lot because it shows both the practical and emotional sides of love.
In “An ancient gesture” Millay makes reference to Homer’s Penelope who waited 20 years for her husbands return. The commitment that she had to have to stay faithful for so long, knowing that his husband was probably being tempted by many women in his journey, was a great one. Unfortunately, she also talks about man’s point of view in a relationship as a weak one. She implies that women make most of the effort and that men show no affection. This is a very controversial point of view and I think it’s best to “kill the author” and have many views instead of think that that is what she meant.
“Modern declaration” is Edna’s way of telling her husband, or her lovers that she will love no matter what gets in her way. That, and her critique to society about her way of being. She says that even if the media or the church say it’s wrong, she’ll still do it in the name of love.
The last poem, “"Visit to the Asylum” expresses her idea that women should not give in to men’s wishes. Is he wants her, he should go to her and not expect her to fall for him. Outlying her feminist background and her “nerve” to say things as she pleased.

Anonymous said...

In Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry, the stereotypical perceptions of love are confronted with liberalism and openess, thus promoting a brave and different view of the expected roles of couples and the meaning of love itself. In "Love is Not All", Millay openly states that the emotion of love is wonderful, yet it cannot satisfy the physical necessities for life. She questions the validity of love and asks the reader to choose what is more important: life or love? Moreover, the poem has a complete turning point when Millay says:"Yet many a man is making friends with death/Even as I speak, for lack of love alone",thus making love a pillar for life. She ingeniously combines and balances physical and emotional necessity, therefore making a space for love in life. Furthermore, by contraposing life and love to create an "all", Millay successfully uses irony to validate love in all spaces, making it transcendental.
Millay also redefines love, in this case through couples, in "An Ancient Gesture". By defining the act of crying as real for women and as artificial for men, she exposes the necessity of crying for love. Through the act of crying, women prove to be stronger than men because they liberate themselves through tears. Men, on the other hand, prove nothing through chauvinism and finally cry out of gesture instead of feeling. Therefore, by using the example of Penelope and Ulysses, Millay exhorts women to cry for strength and solidarity in love. Moreover, she challenges men to express their feelings and liberate their love fully to join their lover's tears of strength.
After promoting equality in couples through love, Edna St. Vincent Millay also invites women to empower themselves and take control of their loves. For example, in "A Visit to the Assylum" the speaker represents the "new woman of the twentieth century" and challenges the "queer folk" to come and visit her, thus empowering herself and recognizing her own validity as a woman. Men, protrayed as madmen, can be seen as intimidated through the newly voiced woman, making them even more attracted to this counterpart, but at the same time taken aback. By giving the speaker a voice, Millay gives all women a fighting chance against the oppression of the "asylum". Millay redefines the woman of the time and exposes men for their flaws, thus moving away from love. On the other hand, in "A Modern Declaration", the woman is making
an open statement not only of her sexuality, , "I having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never having wavered/In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the rich or in the presence of clergymen having denied these loves;",but of her everlasting love to another person. By saying that she will always love her soulmate, Millay breaks with the preocupations of the time, probably WWII, and leaves everything behind for love. Through love, she feels empowered to conquer anything and, in turn, is empowering her lover to face the world with her. She renounces to all worldly occupation and declares her undying love. Finally, by strengthing both sides of the couple, Millay restructures the chauvinistic ideal of love and fits it to the "new age" woman standard.
In conclusion, Edna St. Vincent Millay embodies a true feminist and inspires both men and women to love completely and fully. Her different views of love and couples truly make a leading and equal space for both lovers, thus making love their only need for life and "all".

Anonymous said...

Edna St Vincent Millay was a feminist who actually believed that women should choose who or what they want to be. In a Visit to the Asylum she states that the man should look for the woman and win her if he truly wants her. She does not believe in love but says that it is necessary. In love is not all she says that even though love is not everything it is necessary to a person to be happy and this needs to come from both parts. In An ancient gesture she says that it is woman who only show their feelings in the relantionship and that men don't. And in a modern declaration she says that even though the woman is suffering and passing through some problem she declares that she will be able to find comfort in her lover as long as the love is mutual.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent, a feminist author, is breaking the barrier in society by letting women have a voice, be strong and capable of taking care of themselves. Through her literature for example in “Love is not all” Vincent presents two types of view that humanity has of it, first of like the title love is not all and that love is crucial for the life of every human being. She explains how love is not like our daily necessities of life; food, shelter and doesn’t give us everything we need to live for. In the other hand, she mentions that even though love can’t supplies use with our daily necessities it can provides us with hope and happiness; love is necessary and without it the world will just be a shameful and fill with disgrace. We can see how love can be contradictory, but in these two poems “An Ancient Gesture” and “A Modern Declaration” we see the importance of true love; being devoted and loyal to your love one. In “An Ancient Gesture” we see how Penelope the main character feels sorrow and alone while her husband Ulysses is gone; even though she feels that way she remains ultimately decided to keep her faithfulness to her husband. Lastly her husband plays the role of pleasing his wife by giving a gesture of crying showing that her that he cares even though he didn’t cry over his emotions. Similar to this poem “A Modern Declaration” announces her great devotion to her love one. She overcomes the pressures of society by declaring her love and her commitment to keep her fidelity and her devotion over her lover. She declares love is forever and it must overcome the difficulties of life. Finally, we have “A Visit to the Asylum” which describes distorted relationship between a younger girl and older man. The old man desires her for her innocence and her youth ness. At the end of the poem she realizes she doesn’t need a man to keep her happy and control her life; she decides no longer to be and object of sexual desires. This obsession with her makes her realize that men don’t determine who she will be in the long run of her life. In conclusion Edna St. Vincent proclaims the women voice to be powerful, full of control and independent through her literature.

Eduardo "tank" Pascual said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay is a feminist, but still it is extremly curious to see how she presents the theme of love troughout her poetry. During the class discussion I grew extremly curious on her poem "An Ancient Gesture". I liked how she integrated an old epic poem such as the one of the Oddessy to vindicate her perception of a relationship and the specific roles each member must fulfill. Penelope suffers by the absence of her husband; she weeps and cry, but Oddysseus in the other hand weeps of a different kind. The relationship is not equal but still the love is present and of both put effort it will eventually result as gratifying. Also, in her poem "Love is not all" she further questions the validity of love and makes us question: Is love vital? Is it merely a superficial feeling? She begins by saying that love is not a form of life or neither a form of salvation; she underestimates the power of love. Moreover, towards the end of the poem she openly contradicts herself and goes on to say that love is indeed ALL. Love causes humans to excell and eventually pursue a higher purpose, something eternal that will stimulate the full potential of that particular human. Millay does not limit herself to her feminist feelings; she realizes that love is universal, it is inevitable. We see that she critizices love even since the time of Oddysseus, but still love endures it persists.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay likes to write about women and their roles in a couple. She is all for women having the right to choose how they wish to live and with with whom. In "Love is not all", there is a symbolic conflict between what is reality and what is an illusion. The reason for this is that Millay is exposing what was expected of couples. She knew that she needed to do this by understanding both sides of couples. The most important message of the poem is that love is the most important thing in a relationship and in life in general. This is done by utilizing the paradox of love being replasable with other things but, it is the most important thing. In "An Ancient Gesture", a struggle is being narrated between Penelope and Ulysses. The gesture is describes as ancient because it is so unique and real. The gesture is crying is trying to change the idea of what men were supposed to represent in a marriage. Ulysses does cry and this does not make him less of a man and proves that both of them maintain faithful regardless of what happens to them. In "A Visit to the Assylum", the narrator feels that she is being watched through the windows of an assylum. The symbolism is suggesting that women are obtaining their rights and their roles are changing. Finally, in "A Modern Declaration", the speaker is expressing what she can do with her love that she has for her special someone. It doesn't matter what is going on in the society that she lives in, the situation in which her country is in, or what type of government is in power. This things will not affect her love or her views on life.

Anonymous said...

Through the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay studied in class, the author is trying to portray a world that feeds and lives from love. She also reveals how a woman can express her feelings of love towards another man without that appearing to be scandalous or inappropriate for a woman of that time. In her poem "A Modern Declaration", Edna St. Vincent Millay talks about her fidelity with love and her own love towards a man. In this poem, she quotes "That I shall love you always...No matter what temporarily expedient combination of allied interests wins the war."
Through this, Edna was demonstrating the loyalty she has towards the feeling of love and how true she will stay to it without caring for the ever changing reasons for why she loves. Moreover, the author also portrays love as the number one thing that people cannot live without. In her poem "Love is not all", she explains (in a controversial manner) that love is actually all by proving others wrong when they say "love is not all". In this poem, she explains how love cannot physically heal the broken bones of a human nor feel someone's lungs with air; but even so she says that humans that live without love, suffer the same pains as those whom have a fractured bone. Moreover, at the end of the poem Edna concludes "It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution's power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would." In other words, she says that she would rather live in a world without peace or without food than live without his love.
In the poem "An Ancient Gesture", the reader is able to see the clear distinction between a man's love and a woman's love. The author distinguishes the real, compassionate, and authentic tears Penelope sheds from those forced tears of Ulysses.
Last but not least, in "Visit to the Asylum" Edna demonstrates a female character who goes against what the society she was raise up in taught her. The female character ends up telling the men "You come see me" as though saying that she is worth going after and that she does not have to chaise him when he is the one who is longing for her. So Edna demonstrates that a woman can be respected and can claim a space of her own by standing firm on the ground in rocky moments. Through all of these poems, the reader is able to the passion, longing, and need that Edna St. Vincent Millay had towards that incredible feeling that is love. She is able to create and claim her own space that others are then able to recognize and to admire as she did through her poetry.

Anonymous said...

In the poem above, Edna St. Vincent Millay is trying to show how love plays the major role, or is thought to play the major role in a relationship. What she is trying to say is how sometimes the man in the relationship would use "love" as a way forget about all of their troubles. And that is why it says "Love is not all", because the man cannot continue to use "love" as an escape from their problems as a couple or if he is trying to hide a mistake he committed. For example, "it is not a spar for men to use every time they sink and rise and sink and rise...". However, by the other part of the poem she says how there are other men that do not use "love" because they need "love". That there are men that are lonely that need "love" to help them get better and to continue on with their lives. That is why she contradicts herself on the concept of "love" because she is not sure if it is "love" that deceits her, or if it is her companion.

Anonymous said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay exemplifies the desires of both men and women in her poem "Love is not All". Th efact that men and women want love in their lives doesn't mean that love has to be everything in their lives. Sometimes humans tend to let their thoughts and emotions get the best of them and forget that love, although wonderful and fullfilling, does not put food on the table or save lives. However, Millay herself points out another truth at the end of the poem: love may not be all, but truly it IS all. Love can drive men and women to do great things, it can bring people (couples) together with fantastic results, it can motivate individuals to do things they wouldn't do without the inspiration of love. It is truly fascinating to think that many of the things we enjoy about our lives would not exist, if not for love; and yet, with the necessary determination and motivation they could just as well be acheived without love.

Anonymous said...

First of all, I love you. Edna St. Vincent Millay wants to explain and express through her poems her feelings and views about couples were the woman talks about her loved one. Her poems express the sincerity and unconditional love. In "Love is not all" she contradicts herself by saying love alone won't let you survive on Earth, but at the end realizes it's still as important as every human necessity. The narrator also says she would never trade love for anything in the world and mentions even the importance of its memory. And the poem is trying to say is that even though it doesn't cover all the basic necessities of our life we would never exchange the feeling for something else.
In "An ancient gesture", Edna shows a different but real side to marriage. She compares the narrators sincere tears to the deceitful cry of a man from Greek mythology. With this poem Edna criticizes a man's carelessness to a woman's commitment to marriage and her complete fidelity. The narrator waits, faithfully and committed to their relationship, for her husband while he's at war and she doesn't even know if he's coming back. In a "Modern declaration" the narrator promises to love her partner truthfully no matter who knew or threatened. Regardless the type of party and politic, she would pledge her loyalty towards her love.

pao.moon said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems are those talking of couples. Each poem is not that different from the other. They each show a similar love, expectation of men and women according to society, the level of commitment, etc. For example, in "An Ancient Gesture", we are presented a weeping woman who stops and realizes how this suffering has been going throughout so many centuries. Like Greece's heroes from The Odissey, Ulysses and his wife, Penelope. The crying woman compares herself to Penelope, who waited so many years, yurning her husband's departure. She realizes that they both cry from the heart, they "really" cry. But Ulysses or whichever man, cries only as gesture, he doesn't suffer as much, he is just "too moved to speak". By this poem we understand that women were, are, and will always be more devoted than men to the other person.
In a "Modern Declaration", a very short but meaningful poem, we see exactly that, a modern, unconditional, and eternal love. No matter what may happen, good or bad, she "shall love you always".
Finally, we have "Love Is Not All". First, she begins saying how love is not all, it is not a basic need. But then, as the poem keeps going, she contradicts herself saying how you need companionship, it is necessary and essential. She would never trade it for anything in the world. So love "is" all, but it "isn't" at the same time, a somewhat difficult thing to understand. But when you think about it, it is very true. For example, you need love to keep a family together, but love won't pay the rent, the electricity or anything in a household for that matter.

clau18 said...

Edna St. Vincent Millaywas also known for her unconventional, bohemian lifestyle and her many love affairs.I believe she was a feminist embracing women and their independance. She wanted women to be able to be themselves and portray their respective wishes and manage their life with equality. She belived in love but not the way that is shown to us in fairytales, she belived that us women should make our own way and not fallow all that men want us to do. In "An Ancient Gesture", the women Penelope who is the one who is awaiting for her husband who is in battle is teh one expresing her emotions waiting for him and being loyal. We can se how Millay portyas women as the one who is more open about their feeling, but at the same time shows faithfullnes as a virtue of marrige. In some way she shows the women position in a relationship in contrast with her husband who is in war , it shows how she is teh one who trully suffers. In "Love Is Not All", she has miced feelings, she states one thung but later contradicts herself and says another. The maina idea consists that she emplies that love is not important and nor exists, and later staes that love is teh greatest thing in the world; stating a crucial question: is love worth or not ? . Finally in "Modern Declaration" states the comitment of women vs men in a relationship. The author states how her love as a women is so pure and sencire that she wouldnt change anything about it.She wants to go above the stuff that hapenns and all the things represented in society by stating her love.

claudia pico said...

Through her poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay has demonstrated that she is a true feminist writer. She was able to redefine the concept of a relationship and the roles of both husband and wife. In "Love is Not All" the author states that love should not be a necessity in a person's life and that society should be able to survive with out it. However, in the last couple of lines she states that she strongly believes that she wouldn't trade the love she feels for her partner for anything in this world and that even though many believe that humanity can survive without love, she sees this very difficult and uses as an example how "man kind is making friends with death". In "Modern Declaration" she reveals to her partner that she loves and will always love him no matter what. She expresses her strong affections towards him and how her love for her partner will overcome any obstacles and is a much stronger force than anything in this world. Lastly, in "An Ancient Gesture" Edna St. Vincent Millay is making reference to ancient Greek with Odysseus and his wife Penelope. She says that it is an ancient gesture to cry and wipe away your tears when your loved one is away and you dont have a clue of where he could be or when he is coming back. These are three very different poems in which Millay explains the unconditional love that women have for men in a relationship and the hardships that this love could sometimes cause them, but she makes it clear that they are willing to take it all for their love.

MarianaMelendez said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay uses her poetry to portray different aspects of relationships and the position women have in them. In "Modern Declaration", she exposes how powerful the love of a woman can be, for it can transcend war, politics, and the hardships that life presents. A woman's love faces many obstacles but it has the power to overcome them, without losing its intensity. In the poem "Love is not all" Edna St. Vincent begins by explaining that there are many necessities before love, that health, food, and a home are essential for a person's survival. Yet, she argues that people that have all their essential needs are dying because the don't have love. She tries to prove that while love is not technically essential for our survival it gives people a reason to live, and extra breath, and without it their is no purpose to live. Also, in "An Ancient Gesture" she presents how women are brave enough to show their true feelings, how they cry from the heart and are the ones that show their passion and their pain. She presents how all throughout history women have always been the ones that show their emotions in a relationship. Women have the emotional power to make love and a relationship transcend time and obstacles

patriciaM said...

Millay presents a classic theme in a different way, from a modern times woman's point of view. She speaks of love in a true manner and demonstrates in her verses her intense passion for the subject.
For instance, in "Love is Not All" she speaks of our world, in which we do not really need love to survive, in comparison to things that our physical bodies run on, such as food. She contradicts herself at the end, however, and tells us that love truly is all, that it is necessary to feed our human spirit and without love it cannot survive.
In "A Modern Declaration" she speaks of a love so pure and strong, that it overcomes anything else in the world. Other things such as politics and societies dealings become meaningless next to love. She explains that despite whatever may happen, she will always love her significant other.
In "An Ancient Gesture" Millay speaks realistically, depicting a woman who cries, who feels, and is faithful to her significant other. Upon doing research, I found it interesting to find that the poem has a story behind it about Odysseus' disappearance for 20 years and Penelope saying that she would choose a new husband after she finished weaving a quilt. However, at the end of the day, Penelope would undo it and start over again, waiting in hopes that her husband would come back. So it is interesting to think that the poetic voice compares herself to Penelope, and saying that Odysseus (Ulysses) learned from Penelope's gesture and because of her honest tears, he was able to show emotions.

Viviana Bonilla said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry presents a woman who is both strong and vulnerable, in love and with her feet firmly on the ground, passionately in like. The poems "Love is not all", "An ancient gesture", and "Modern declaration" the reader meets a woman who expects to be loved and cherished and longs to be swept off her feet. However, this does not mean that she is willing to sacrifice her needs or her dignity. She is not willing to lower her expectations.

Amanda Suarez said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an independent activist and clear feminist who was determined to show the strengths women have in relationships. As seen in the three poems below, she preferred to write using a female point of view to help represent what she wanted to portray to the readers. In each of the three poems, the poet is able to express how love can affect a woman and how they aren’t afraid to show emotion. In “Love Is Not All”, Edna St. Vincent Millay presents love in a contradictory way. In the beginning of the poem, she explains that love isn’t that important. It can’t provide us with the material things that we very much need, such as a roof or food. But even though it can’t give us the necessities of life, we humans still need it in order to survive. It helps us get through each day in life. The poet helps us all understand that both women and men need love in their life. Without it, there would be chaos and disorder. “Modern Declaration” is another poem where Edna St. Vincent Millay expresses how important love is. The poem is basically an assurance of love to the person the speaker cares about. She explains that she will always love and be loyal to him without ever faltering. She also shows examples of things that she has never stopped loving to prove how long she’ll love him. It helps to have this strong, faithful love in order to have a true relationship between two people. Vincent Millay was able to write “An Ancient Gesture” in a simple way, but still giving it elegance and a deep meaning. The woman in the poem, Penelope, is crying and waiting for her husband who has been away for years. Millay seems to justify the weeping by showing that it is acceptable. Crying, or showing emotion, is a beautiful and genuine act and sometimes, it’s the only thing one can do. Edna St. Vincent Millay helps point out from her poems that love will endure no matter what, especially with the help of the woman, because they are the ones that assist in keeping it strong and true.

Marian Cañón said...

Through her poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay shows the role that women have in relationships. In "Love is not All," the narrator starts saying that love cannot provide for material objects that humans need in life in order to survive (ex: food). But later, she says that even if she was suffering she would never trade or sell her love. In the poem "Modern Declaration," the narrator says that when she was a child, she never loved many things and didn't care much about events that were happening around her. But she eventually fell in love and she realizes that she would always love that person no matter what happened. "An Ancient Gesture" is a poem in which Greek mythology is used to show how much she loves her husband. Penelope was Odyssues's wife that waited 20 years for her husband to return. In order to not get married, she told her suitors that she would choose someone to marry after she finished weaving a piece of cloth. During the day, she would weave and during the night, she would undue everything she had done during the day. The narrator is saying that she would wait for her husband's return no matter how much time passes by. Also it is okay to cry because sometimes it is the only thing one can do and that it shows how much the narrator cares about her husband.

Marian Cañón said...

...With these poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay portrays that a women's love toward men is unconditional and it would never end. Also that women tend to be the one who can express their feelings while men cannot.

Christian DLS said...

Respect, loyalty, equality, trust, and identity are just some of the themes that are present in the study of couples. Each author shows these and many other themes in many different ways. One of the best representations of couples is the literary works of Pulitzer Prize winner and American poet and playwright, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Also known as Nancy Boyd in her prose, this bohemian woman was devoted in writing mainly about love and heterosexual relationships. Millay’s poetry is generally filled with her emotions, ideas, and experiences, and she expresses them straightforwardly. Among her great literary pieces are “Love Is Not All,” ”Modern Declaration,” and “An Ancient Gesture.”

At the beginning of “Love is not all,” the speaker describes various situations in which love cannot heal, for example, nor serve as a remedy of cure for any person. It basically describes all the things that love cannot do. Nevertheless, as the poem further develops, the speaker does account the fact that many have died “for lack of love alone.” The poem continues as the speaker considers whether in difficult times, especially those moments of suffering, she would trade love for peace and release, that is, for things that are truly needed at certain times. Regardless of what it can do or cannot do, love actually keeps the individual alive in some way or another. Even though the title states that “Love Is Not All,” during the unfolding of the poem we can find the ironic truth that love is actually “all” and although all of these difficult scenarios may be real, the speaker culminates by saying that she would definitely not give up love for anything. What is left to say is: how can love be “all” if it cannot give us the basic things we need in life?

In “Modern Declaration,” the speaker is essentially declaring her endless love to her beloved. More than faithful, as we all know Millay was not that faithful in real life, this poem portrays loyalty as she confesses that regardless of the circumstances of a place and what surrounds her, she will always express love . As evidence of this supposed eternal love, the speaker recounts loving some things as a child proving that time is definitely not an obstacle or a factor that causes changes in her general feelings of love.

Finally, Millay’s “An Ancient Gesture” may appear as a superficial or less profound poem at first glance as it does not appear to be more than a poem about a woman wiping her eyes on her apron, but when you try to ‘dig in’ deeper and deeper, you discover the exciting world of allusions. As the poem develops, Penelope struggles by waiting nearly 20 years for his husband Ulysses to return from war as she wipes her tears, wipes her eyes on her apron. The last stanza is a strong declaration that Ulysses pretended to me moved by tears, but it is actually Penelope who had really wept in fear waiting with great loyalty for her husband to return. The speaker’s intimate portrayal of emotions such as fear makes this poem much more than a simple woman wiping her eyes with an apron.

In these poems, Millay successfully presents her alleged loyalty through feelings of love, fear, respect, and devotion. Her eternal love is something she enjoys writing about regardless of her real life situations of unfaithfulness. It is through her poems that Millay best portrays the needs of couples by expressing love as probably the most vital element in relationships and, perhaps, life.

KMiller said...

In the three poems we were assigned to read, Millay makes it very clear that although love is not something practical (I mean practical in the sense that it cannot provide shelter, food, nor money)it is something that gives us a type of emotional energy. We are brought to tears by love, we want to survive in order to continue love, and it is the glue to any relationship. With love, we stop caring about what society thinks is the right man for us, and we just end up choosing with our hearts and just deal with society later.If Millay were to give couples any advice, it would be that love must reign over all.

Keykey said...

In the three poems we were assigned to read, Edna St. Vincent expresses her emotions of what love really represent in a human being life, by portraying her true feelings. She lets us know that love can overpower many thing though some people have always thought otherwise. She believes entirely in true love and though she understands that suffering is one of the outcomes that we feel is also a feeling we need to surpass so we can undergo the love she is trying to present. In the end what I can depict from Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems is that, truly loving someone and being completly faithful is achieving the ultimate goal in life.

Skavi said...

Love is ineffably relevant to our lives. It is not indescribable due to its wanton power, but more so because of its daunting importance. Edna St. Vincent Millay explores the fringes, varying strains, and lingering insecurities that accompany the shadowed light of love. Millay does not berate the people who fail to understand love on "Love Is Not All," she sympathizes with them. Her last verse betrays the seeming stigma she attaches to affection in the rest of the poem, which casts love as an insignificant trouble. The dichotomy is implemented to signify our inherent need for love, whether we know it, want it, or acknowledge it. These sentiments are also reflected in "Modern Declaration," an ode to nihilistic love and "An Ancient Gesture," which is a poetic interpretation of Penelope's woes. Feminist sentiments seep through, permeating mere figurative speech, and implanting modern realizations of love.

Stephanie N. said...

When one is going to read a love poem complex metaphors, and dramatic symbolism are usually expected. As beautiful as that cosmopolitanism of love is and as much as I adore it, it's not reality. When I first read Edna St. Vincent Millay poem "Love is not all" I felt like my soul had finally been spoken for. As bitter as that may sound, it's really quite the opposite. This poem presents love in it's true form. It isn't food or home, and definitely not biologically necessary. Yet, the poetic voice describes the men that "die" over it. What I think makes the love in this poem the most real is the poetic voice's lack of knowledge for it. She does not pretend to know the strength of this thing they call love. She only feels it, and "thinks" it is strong.

In her other poem "A Modern Declaration" we also see how she ties her love to the real world. She exposes it to all the evils of the modern world and with that presents its strength.This poem shows a much more defined love that the first, she is sure of its unbreakability.

The last poem "An Ancient Gesture" I think stands out from the others. It's less about the reality of love and more about the timelessness of the gesture of waiting for a lover. She speaks of how both male and female suffer the same, but it is the woman who "really cries."

MarianaG said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay expresses in her poetry various points of view about love. In "Love is not all" she expresses that even though love is not all in life, you can live without love, she chosses not to because for her it is. She expresses that love is a cause that she would die for because it dictates a mayor part of her life. In the poem "An Ancient Gesture", she expresses love as a universal thing, that no matter what time your living in, love can hurt you and it can complete you the same way. In the last poem, "Modern Declaration", she expresses her devotion to love and her feelings that it is a very important part of her life.

Anonymous said...

Edna Vincent St. Millay believes in the rights of women. She believes in their freedom to choose whom ever they want to be. She gives new meaning to relationships, breaking the standards and the boundaries set in her times. She wants women to be aware that love is no all, like the poem. In the poem she encourages women to not be so hung up on seeking their "soulmate" or partner because there's more to life. Love is not the answer to everything and she want to get that message across to her audience. The other tow poems also talk about love but this one was the one that I liked the most.

amandacamila said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay states in her poetry that love is not what provides us with life, it does not have the power to kill us and neither does it fill our lungs with air. Edna St. Vincent Millay basically states that love is not a physical necessity because it is not something as important as water or air and yet it does have the capability of making some people risk their lives to be able to experience it but she is not one of them.
I really like this poem because it shows another side of what we are used to believe is the usual point of view women have. St. Vincent Millay shows us thet women can be emotionally strong and that the love of a man is not necessary for them to lead happy comfortable lives.

ayxarosado said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay uses her poetry as a way to express women's and men's role in the rrelationship. She presents the themes of loyalty, equality and trust in her poems.
In "Love is Not All", Edna St. Vincent expresses the powerful position love has in her life. Along the poem, she manifests that love is not all material and superficial things, it is much more. Love occupies a high position in her life going above all the basic necessities of society. By having love, she says you may have everything.
"Modern Declaration" acts as a strong statement challenging society's opinionn on love. She explains how love goes over politics, knowledge and material possessions.
Finally, in "An Ancient Gesture", Edna St. Vincent portrays women as loyal subjects to their loved ones. The poetic voice is enduring the wait of her loved one by crying which in contrast to what is normally thought of crying, she makes crying seem a powerful and important gesture that has been used throughout time. The tears the woman has are pure and real in contrast with her loved ones which are false.

Mike said...

Edna St. Vincent, a true writer of love poetry..bleh. Through the these three poems the reader can appreciate her view on what love is and what love should be. For her, love must be a mutual relationship where both man and woman share the same feeling for each other. Unfortunately, she says that it is only women who really care and suffer over their partner, men only pretend to. She says that women need to stay strong and true to themselves. What I find most interesting is that she says that "Love is not all", yet she says that she wouldn't give it away. So really what she does is turn love into an inexorably integral part of our lives.

amandacamila said...

In A modern declaration Edna St. Vincent Millay puts forth a love so strong that can surpass anything and everything it talks about how denying the love she feels is something that wouldn't happen ever. In an ancient gesture she speaks of how penelope's waiting was one that although was full of sadness and grief was one that was real whilst Odysseus attitude when returning was not as genuine to his own feelings.

Bob Rivera said...

Honestly, I don't know if anyone has mentioned The Beatles yet and if not, let me be the first to say "All you need is love". Of course, this is not what Edna St. Vincent Millay says with her poem "Love is not all". Without even referencing the song, I can say that love really is all you need; not in the sense of buying one's necessities nor literally getting rid one of hunger, if not that if it weren't for love, eating, having material things, and all life would really be worth nothing. I believe the author realizes this and is why at the end of the poem she says she probably would not trade her love for anything, not even for a great cause or need.

Having this train of thought, however, does not mean that one should love someone forever no matter what. Allow me to explain before you interpret this as severe, loveless cynicism. If one is truly, deeply in love, we should love our partner forever, but there's a catch. We honestly can't believe in such a blind love where if the greatest mistakes occur, we can continue loving a person. Sure, we must forgive in love, but there are limits we must establish and though it may hurt us, we cannot devote our love of a single person to a limitless extreme. So, I must go against what Millay's "Modern declaration" says and insist that we should love and love a lot because love is essential, but we cannot love blindly nor let ourselves be fooled by such ultimately meaningless things as are infatuations.

"An ancient gesture" is a perfect example of a situation in which one should not love someone forever and no matter what. Here we have the allusion of Penelope, wife to Odysseus, and are shown an example of her suffering his return. To be honest, even though he will come back eventually, she shouldn't have to wait for him for such a long time nor suffer the despair of not knowing if her love will ever come again. The thing is, though one may think he was her one, true love, that is incorrect. If she had the ability to love him as much as she did, then she had the capacity to love someone else with the same amount of sincerity and deserved a life of happiness despite not being with the man she thought was her one true love. And, was he really her one true love? I think not due to the fact that she cried purely and honestly for him, but he only cried as a gesture or perhaps an obligation, not because he truly, deeply loved her.

Ricky Velez said...

Through these three poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay redefines the meaning of love and expresses her devotion towards it. She explores love in the most genuinely and purest way; expressing her thoughts and feelings. In the poem "Love is not all", Edna contradicts herself by stating that love is not all but that it may be even more than all. Love does not sustain our bodies but there are those of us who live and die for it, "Yet many a man is making friends with death even as I speak, for lack of love alone." She begins by stating what love cannot do, that is, support us in any physical and tangible way. However, it is that feeling that fills our emotions with joy and comfort and we will suffer without it. In "Modern Declaration", Edna St. Vincent Millay shows that she values love over anything else. She emphasizes her ability to love a single person forever no matter what. There have been different pressures that have sought to kill her love but the poetic voice has remained faithful to that love. Millay uses the repetition of the word never to emphasize her faithfulness. The poem is an example of unconditional and eternal love. Finally, in "An Ancient Gesture" Millay shows that women are usually the ones who wait desperately for their love. It is an ancient gesture that women weep waiting for their love; an allusion to Penelope and Odysseus. "There is simply nothing else to do"; the poetic voice resigns and cries authentically (Penelope) and from the heart while he (Odysseus) cries superficially and as a gesture. To conclude, Edna St. Vincent Millay is a feminist who believes in the true essence of love; a relationship in which both men and women must have feelings towards each other. She feels that love must conquer all and criticizes men's indifference towards women's unconditional love.

MOrtiz said...

Through her poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay expresses her belief that love is unconditional and the most important thing in the world. In the poem "Modern Declaration" we see a woman whose love for a person is so great that she would continue to love that person under any circumstances. "An Ancient Gesture" shows us the story of Penelope and Odysseus, and how Penelope remained faithful to her husband even though he was missing for 20 years. Finally in "Love is not All" Millay tells us that even though love isn't needed for the human body to survive, it is something that she wouldn't trade for anything in the world.

Fmarte said...

In these poems Edna Vincent Millay, is showing that love even though it may not be necessary need for survival, but it is something that is yearned for, and wanted. In "An Ancient Gesture" the woman in the poem is still waiting, still going on since love is not physically necessary but she is emotionally broken down and desperate for her lover to come back. In "Love is not all" the speaker says also repeats the same ideas, love is not necessary, it does not calm any physical need, but when asked to give away her memories; the speaker refuses to exchange her memories for anything else. In Modern Declaration, the speaker declares her unconditional love toward her lover that has not "wavered" despite all of her experiences. All of this proves that love is not physically necessary but indirectly it is. Love is something that may fills you emotionally and spiritually. These are two very important parts of the human being and when threatened, your condition may wither or deteriorate, so in a way love may not keep your body alive, but it keeps your spirit alive, your soul, and to me these things are more significant.

LPabon said...

I enjoyed reading Edna St. Vincent because she portrays love in a very unique way; she is truly honest and expresses exactly how she feels. Through her poems, Edna St. Vincent has showed that love isn't easy. Love isn't necessary a fairy tale and she proves this by talking about the imperfections in love. She is strong yet vulnerable because she loves unconditionally. She doesn't care what others think and she doesn't choose who to love it just happens to her.

MilloMujica said...

Ms. St. Vincent did undoubtedly strike a chord on my opinions with her three poems. I believed that love was a rationalization designed to help us mask the coarseness and rudimentary nature of the instinct of mating.
In "Love is Not All" she gracefully postulates that, though love is all-powerful, it is indispensable for human beings precisely because it's a coping mechanism.
In "Modern Declaration" she puts love in a more secular plane. She puts it through the stresses of life and shows it to be as unbreakable as the human spirit.
Finally, in "An Ancient Gesture", she shows how timeless and eternal love can be, transcending time and space only to pick up were it left off. This is love's ability to redeem humans and truly validate them as human beings.
The departure from my previous ideal came at this point. I realized that, though it is a coping mechanism, it's what keeps us grounded and, consequently, makes us human.

gabriela batista said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay is a very passionate author who expresses in her poems her views of love and couples. In the poem "Love is Not All" she expresses that love doesn't satisfy all of the basic necessities of life, such as food, water, or air. Above all of these necessities, she implies that a life without love is empty and that you cannot live without it because it is the most important thing you need to survive. In "Modern Declaration" Millay declares that love overcomes anything else in the world, for example, politics and anything related to society. These aspects of life are nothing when compared to love. She explains that despite whatever happens in life she will always love that person so important to her. "An Ancient Gesture" is a poem that I really liked because it reflected women and their power. It shows a woman who is waiting for her lover crying and she is remembered of Penelope, Ulysses' wife. She tells us that crying is an ancient gesture because it is something that represents women's loyalty towards their husbands when they are far away from them. They wait in hope that their husbands will return.

Unknown said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay is a guiding light when it comes to writing about love and relationships. In "Love is Not All" she explains love doesn't buy anything, and it doesn't provide material things that we desire, but the power that love has can make one forget about all those material object because it provides hope for the most important part of ourselves, which is our soul. I feel that everyone can relate to this because of how transparent love is. In a "Modern Declaration" she shows an even more secular approach to love by relating it to our society and how nothing can encroach the feeling that loves gives us, no matter how important or unimportant it may seem. Finally, in "An Ancient Gesture" Penelope bares all her emotions for Ulysses, yet he simply mirrors for the sake of making her believe that he felt the same way. She uses the title rather ironically by using the word gesture, when in reality there was no gesture being portrayed. Showing that love is not something that one can wait for, for it is something so precious that it can only be found.

npim said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay tries to make the reader visualize the other aspects there are in a relationship besides love itself. It is self worth that is important in a relationship with whomever and this is why she writes about common aspects of daily life such as politics. In her poetry she does not forget that one has to have a relationship with yourself before sharing that relationship with another person. In "Love is not all" the writer contradicts herself by saying that love is not one of our basic necessities and towards the end she lets us know that we do need love. It is the contrast that she uses in her poetry that lets the reader identify the two different types of relationships that one can have: a self-relationship and a traditional relationship with a partner. The point of not losing a true identity, just sharing part of it in a relationship, gets across.

ZCordero said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay was a feminist who defined love on her own terms. She had a very open and free view of love which is expressed through her poem "A Modern Declaration". She also recognizes that love is not all that a human being needs to survive because it is not food or a shelter; but that it is the most important thing in life. Edna St. Vincent Millay views couples in a very unusual way where love is the only thing needed to form a relationship, seen through her open marriage. In her poem "An Ancient Gesture" she speaks about the usual tradition of couples where the woman loves unconditionally and suffers while the man merely imitates her. According to her thousands of women throughout history are the ones who have truly loved and know what a grand gesture it is.

c.colón said...

Millay declares in "Love is not all" that love is not essential to actual life. She contrasts love against rest and food and with this strives to prove that love is not life. This then takes a twist because she does declare that she wouldn't give up memories of love for food or peace.
In "A Modern Declaration" she is a woman who openly asserts her opinions and her identity and as so she also asserts her love, a love which she describes as free from outside forces.
One can interpret that the speaker from "An Ancient Gesture" wishes to declare that women are the ones who really love, it is because of this love that women suffer and cry. In their tears lies their love suce as in Penelope's tears, Ulysses's tears are merely a copy, a learned gesture, from hers.

JLondono said...

Millay starts off her poem "Love is Not All" by defining love as not essential to life. She accomplishes this by comparing the need for love to the need for food, water, shelter, etc. As the poem progresses, however, the speaker contradicts herself by saying that many men have been killed by the absence of love. I agree with what Millay states in her poem. My opinion is that while love is necessary to be able to live, it is surely necessary to continue to live. While it is possible to heal a broken bone, it almost always proves to be impossible to heal a broken heart. This is the reason that most humans have met their basic needs, yet still hunger for something more, still hunger for love...

Apueyo said...

Edna St. Vincent is declaring in her poems the view of love through the eyes of a true feministic writer. She redifines the role of the man and women in each relationship and how society expects them to be portrayed. In "Love is not all" we see how she explains how love is important but not a necessity for human survival, at the end though she realizes that love is something that no one can live without and everyone needs and deserves some love in their life. She basically figures out that love is not any of the things that we define as sustancial tu life yet it is something no one can life without. In a "Modern Declaration" she states how important love is to her and how true she is to this love. "I shall love you always" is used in this poem and that truly is how she feels about him. She will always love him and never forget her love towards him. in an "Ancient Gesture" We see how Penelopy does everything possible in order not to marry again and still has faith that her love will one day return. In this poem we actually see how both partners in the ralationship show their love towards one another instead of just the woman's view of it. We can see how Ulysses also shows her love towards her by returning to her love one and defending her from all the suiters that wanted to marry her.who are abandoned by heir love ones still wait, still love and still hopw for theit love ones to one day come back to them.

krivera♥ said...

Edna St. Vincent's poems are about love. We can appreciate in her poems the way in which she loves and the way in which she sees love. In "Love is Not All", the author starts enumerating all the things that love is not; love will not save you nor give you breath. She basically says that love isn't life yet you can't live without it. It cannot fufill the basic necessities of life but, in those disasters that life brings us, if we find love we wouldn't change it for anything. Edna St. Vincent Millay also says that "Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath...yet many a man is making friends with death even as i speak, fro lack of love alone." In this quote the author is telling us that love isn't a necessity like breath but many men die for lack of love alone but, does she truly believe that love is unecessary? No because she says that she wouldn't sell love for peace or food because that is how important love is for humanity. In the end, love IS all.

ncasillo said...

According to Edna St. Vincent Millay, love goes farther than just being in a relationship. On the contrary, one doesn't have to be a couple to express their love and their true feelings. Even though times change and societies views of life changes, love always remains. For example, "An Ancient Gesture" and in "Modern Declaration" take place in diferent centuries, but love doesn't change. In "Love is not all", she expresses that love can't keep us alive, it won't satisfy our hunger or thirst, it won't give us shelter, but it is so strong that if it means she has to die for love, maybe she will do it. Love may not give us life, but it is necessary to live.

ACollazo said...

Love is a very controversial theme that has been exposed differently depending on the author's view. According to Edna St. Vincent Millay Love is something that is expressed in many unusual ways. In "Love Is Not All" the author tells us that for her Love is not ALL because you can't depend on it to live. Love doesn't help you breath, doesn't give you a shelter, it is not the reason to live. But, even though she says love is not all she says it is everything. "Modern Declaration" is a pledge to loyalty but with a modern twist. She is saying that she will always love him even though she has an open relationship. Meaning that she does love him but is not loyal to him. It is a very interesting way to view their love and this is her unique way to tell him she loves him. On the other hand we have the poem "An Ancient Gesture" in which you can see the traditional and passionate love of the ancient story of Penelope. It is an act of love what she does by waiting for him to come back and doing everything possible for not to marry anyone.

s.colón said...

In "Love Is Not All", Edna St. Vincent Millay discusses how love is not meant to help us survive, but to help us live. Even though she knows it doesn't provide food, shelter, or health, she recognizes that the lack of it can kill us. "Modern Declaration" is a pledge of fidelity, in which she expresses her unconditional love, despite what is happening around them. In "An Ancient Gesture", she is waiting for her love. Even if she is suffering and has to cry, she will continue to wait for him like in classic literature. Edna St. Vincent is a feminist with a modern view of love and relationships. I think that despite her open marriage and her behavior, she believes in old-fashoned true love; one in which you wouldn't trade it for peace or food and are completely devoted to the other person.

Jean Lafontaine said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry presents a very unorthodox perspective of Love. In her poem "Love Is Not All", she states that there are many things that are much more important to her than love, like food and shelter. Paradoxically, she ends the poem by saying that she probably would never sacrifice love for anything. I think that the message the author wanted to convey was that even though love will not help you survive, it is impossible to live without it. In “Modern Declaration”, the author says that, for a couple to be happy, the only thing that is needed is love. In “An Ancient Gesture”, the author says that a wife should have absolute fidelity to her husband. She says that, even if the husband leaves for many years, the wife should never let this corrupt her love. Love is the most powerful force in this world. Without it, people would never be truly happy.

R. Garcia said...

In Edna St. Vincent's poems we can observe different perspectives of love. In "Love Is Not All", Edna St. Vincent Millay is stating a contradiction of love. Love is not all, but it is everything. At first, she says everything human requires to live(shelter, food, and air), but then she refuses to sell love for peace or anything, which lets us know that love is powerful and essential, and in the end, love is all. Love is not a necessity, but its absence will cause a man to exist closer to death. Lack of love results in loneliness and death. In her poem "Modern Declaration", no matter who wins or loses, I shall love you always and there will always be present the unconditional love. The poem is a pledge of loyalty and fidelity and it present the obstacles in love, though one is able to surpass them. Moreover, in "An Ancient Gesture", we see how woman are the ones that truly show how they feel, like Penelope who waited for 20 years weaving and unweaving for Ulysses and portray the real gesture which result in tears and not the fake gesture of her husband Ulysses.

Anonymous said...

Nortiz said....
According to Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems love goes beyond being in a relationship; it is more about feelings than about the seriousness of being a couple. In her poem "Love Is Not All", She doesn't believe that love can sustain one's needs, or provide things to support life. Still at the end she contradicts herself and declares that she wouln't trade love for anything. She prefers love to material things. in "Modern Declaration" she declares her ability to love this person forever even if she has to stand up against outside pressures that want to terminate her love. It is a modern declaration of love because, not as past relationships, she belives they do not need to be a couple to love each other and be loyal to each other. Not exactly loyalty in a "being faithful sense, but still loving each other no matter the circumstances. In "An Ancient Gesture" she explains how women usually are the ones who are loyal in a relationship and the ones who definitely suffer in a relationship.

joppenheimer said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems convey love as something not nessesary to survive but essential to live. All three poems present love as an existing force which binds a couple indefinately. I agree with her view of love and fidelity in a relationship except when she percieves that only a woman can genuinely perform an ancient gesture.

MVélez said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay expresses her views in love through poetry. In her poem “Love is not all” she declares exactly what the title says that love is not all, it starts out by naming all the things love can’t be, but then contradicts herself by saying that love is not all, but its everything. She states that love cannot give you food or shelter, however men have killed for the lack of love. In ‘Modern Declaration’ and ‘Ancient Gesture’ she shows her feminist side by showing how a woman chooses who and how to love. In ‘Modern Declaration’ she asserts that she has a free will especially in her relationship. She expresses her unconditional love and that she will always love no matter what. In ‘Ancient Gesture’ she explains that women are the ones that really feel and that men just imitate them, meaning that Penelope’s tears are real and Ulysses's tears are a merely copy of them. Her cry is not a sign of weakness because it is an authentic, antique gesture.

marcadia said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems show love in a unique, different way. She goes against society's expectations of women and raises her voice about love in her own way. In "Love is not All" explains mentions things love cannot do, how it is useless in some situations, but how at the same time it is everything and she wouldn't trade it for anything. In "Modern Declaration", she shows the ability of loving a person forever, showing loyalty and faithfulness. Finally, in "An Ancient Gesture" words can't express what she feels, she seems tired but her fidelity takes over.

Anonymous said...

-J. Zamora

Love is not all: Love cannot cure diseases, save lives, or do anything tangibly useful, but she wouldn’t give it up, not even for world peace.
Ancient Gesture: The pain felt from the perspective of staying behind and waiting for a loved one is more genuine than that one felt by the one who leaves.
Modern Declaration: Very literally declares that she, under any circumstance would and will forever love the subject of the poem.

MRodriguez said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay expresses three completely different points of view based on love and relationships. For example, in the beginning of “Love is not all” the speaker explains that love obviously is not all for her. She explains that love can’t be objectified to help us in life though she dramatically changes her opinion to state that it can still be worth it in the end. Love is people’s way to express how they feel and most of the time it hurts us and we get little in return but still, it will always be worthwhile. Basically we shouldn’t trade it for anything. In a “Modern Declaration” however, the speaker explains the ability of humans to be able to love someone no matter what. She explains how this love can be possible and infinite. Finally, in an “Ancient Gesture”, she describes to different ways of loving. She describes this way of demonstrating love in the way of a gesture. She states that even though women like Penelope can truly cry and express how they feel, the same gesture of crying can take on a new meaning when Ulysess cries after seeing his love again. Penelope’s gesture of crying is authentic and true, while Ulysess cries can be more superficial or “crocodile tears”. She then brings about in this poem the theme of fidelity, sacrifice, commitment and trust, even though it can be demonstrated in more than one way.

AMercado said...

On her poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay declares that unconditional love is very important in every relationship. In her poem Love Is Not All, she contradicts herself by saying that although love is not all, she would not trade love for anything for food and that someone may die out of lack of love. Another example of unconditional love in a relationship is in the poem Modern Declaration where the speaker declares that he or she will always love his or her lover no matter what. In this poem, Vincent Millay expresses that even though it is an open relationship, she will always love her lover unconditionally. The fact that this relationship is an open one makes this declaration a “modern declaration” because although women have declared their love many times before in matrimonial relationships, they have never been about open relationships. Finally, Vincent Millay expresses her unconditional love for her lover in An Ancient Gesture by giving the example of Penelope and Ulysses. In their story, Penelope is willing to wait until Ulysses comes back while she cries for him. Penelope’s crying, unlike Ulysses crying is authentic and antique as she is expressing real emotions, while Ulysses is not. The speaker compares herself to Penelope as she is going through the same thing and feels the same way. In all her poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay expresses the importance of unconditional love towards partners in a relationship.

N.Abreu said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay presents love in diverse ways. In her poem “Love Is Not All” she states that love is not all, but it is everything. She here contradicts herself because she tries to put together her opinion that love is not a necessity, but its absence will cause a man to exist closer to death. In this poem she investigates situations of pain and misfortune and fined that none would make love any difference. Edna’s poem “Modern Declaration” is different from the first poem because this one is a pledge to loyalty. It is the fidelity of being true to the last, indeed she felt without regard for consequences. She declares her ability to love this person forever. In her poem “An Ancient Gesture” is about Penelope waiting faithfully for her husband, Ulysses, and when he comes back after many years he do cries, but not in the same way and as true as Penelope. Love is not an object, an act, a spirit, or a thought; it is a silent motivator of life.

JRodriguez said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay writes in her poems about her perspective on love. In her poem Love in not all, she questions love's value. At the beginning of the poem she talks about how love will not save anyone because it isn't food nor a roof to live under. In other words Edna St. Vincent says that love is not life, it will not save you. But then she contradicts herself and explains how lack of love results in loneliness and death and how she wouldn't trade it for anything. In the poem Modern Declaration, the speaker declares her ability to love this person no matter what. She's faithful, true to the last in all she feels without regard of consequence. In An Ancient Gesture the speaker talks about Penelope's ancient gesture of waiting for her husband and remaining faithful to him even though she had several marriage proposals. The speaker shows her solidarity toward Penelope and expresses how she's tired and feels helpless and frustrated. She resigns to waiting. In the poem the speaker refers to crying as the ancient gesture. Fidelity and comitment can be seen in this poem. In these three poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay she demonstrates unconditional love, commitment, and trust which are essential in all relationships.

B.avalos said...

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poems define love in different ways. The poems portray the feelings of fidelity, fascination and unconditional love in couples or towards a lover. In the poem, “Love is Not All” the speaker of the poem depicts that love is not life nor the answer or cure for the necessities and obstacles in life. Even though she states that love is literally not all, she contradicts herself by saying that she wouldn’t trade her love for anything, so in the end love is everything. In her poem, “Modern Declaration” the speaker declares that she would be loyal to her lover no matter what happens in their lives or with the open relationship she implies they have. She expresses her absolute love and how nothing will ever change that emotion she has towards her lover. In “An Ancient Gesture” the poems main idea is about loyalty towards her distant lover, and how her waiting and emotions differ from the one she loves. The speaker denotes two gestures, the real and the staged one. The speaker defines them by saying that she truly waited for him, real tears, while his lover’s gesture was depicted as fake or merely for appearance that lacked true feeling.

A.Lopez said...

In the three poems we discussed of Edna St. Vincent, the theme of love is shown. In “Love is not all” she clarifies that love does not fix all the problems in the world, but still she wouldn’t trade it for anything else. In a “Modern Declaration” she makes a pledge of loyalty and fidelity, she states that she will always be there and love her beloved no matter under what circumstances they’re under. In “An Ancient Gesture” she uses an old myth to help her prove her point that women suffer and love more than men. How they’re the ones who have to wait for them, this probably is influenced by her feminism.