My Lips
My Lips
Everything changes. As people get older, the society and surrounds are developed and changes. Everyone goes through transitions in life. Also people know that transition will takes them one step closer to dying. Terrified that they have less life to look forward to, they turn retrospective, hoping to relive memories of past days of glory. When they find that their memories have become ghostly wisps of what was once so vivaciously real, they become depressed and discouraged. Edna St. Vincent Millay describes this human condition in her Italian sonnet, Ў°What Lips My Lips Have KissedЎ±
First of all, in my opinion, the main theme of this poem would be Ў®time could change everythingЎЇ because as you can easily find in the poem, the speaker is saying that her lover (or someone else) is gone by night. On the line 1 Ў°what lips my lips have kissedЎ±, begins the poem, what lips? The speaker asks the reader. As mentioned, those who merely browse the poem immediately think of various young men with whom Millay might have had affairs. But lips do more than kiss; they speak or could act as a metaphor for things that she has written. Instead of reading, what lips my lips has kissed? The reader could construe the opening to speak of the things that the poet has said and done.
It would be foolish, of course, to deny that the poem does not hold its most readily apparent meaning. It is quite possible that Millay sometimes wistfully looked back at the affairs of her youth. But that interpretation does not fully explain the poem. Her use of the Italian sonnet form leads the reader to expect an important turn in the poemЎЇs narrative. When the change comes, her imagery depicts symbols of aging and loneliness. She pensively observes how? In the winter stands the lonely tree? And remembers? That summer sang in her a little while? On line 9 Ў°thus in winter stands the lonely treeЎ±, and on line 13 Ў°I only know that summer sang in meЎ± that it does not sing in her anymore. These seasonal descriptions call to mind two opposing phases in peopleЎЇs lives. In the summer, they enjoy their prime, old enough to do what they want, yet young enough to be very active. By the time the winter of life comes, all that was once young and vibrant has fallen off like dead leaves.
On the other hand, this poem is a perfect example of sonnet, which is a verse, forms consisting of 14 lines with a fixed rhyme scheme, and stanza based on octave and sestet. It is keep repeating like for first eight line as Ў®a, b, b, a, a, b, b, aЎЇ and next six line as all Ў®cЎЇ. In poetry, there are various rhymes and rhythm exists. The speaker using hard rhyme in this poem, for example, first line and fourth line end with Ў®whyЎЇ and Ў®sighЎЇ. In its first octave, the sonnet appears to be the disillusioned lament of a seasoned lover. The lines speak of lonely nights and, lads. On line 7, Ў°Who will never lie with her againЎ± but when the sonnet reaches the end of the octave, a second possible meaning appears. The sestet does not seem to speak of lovers, but of all things lost. When the sonnet is reexamined, it transforms from an elegy for lovers past, into a requiem for all that has been lost from memory.
At the formal turning point in an Italian sonnet, the ninth line, the poemЎЇs metaphors change to natural imagery and help reinforce the inferences drawn from the octave. The image of the lonely tree that stands in winter suggests the poet feels her life has reached another season. She does not see this change as good or brightening; she feels her life grow