How True is True Love in Modern Times?

When love is typically described, it is thought of as a joy, almost pure. Most people want to be in love. Millay, on the other hand, seems to represent passionate love as almost burdensome. When referring to the act of love itself, she describes the women she identifies with “bearing as I bear/love like a burning city in the breast” (lines 7-8). She also states “[I] Do suffer love” (line 11). The words here are all negative, in contrast to what the reader would expect. Yet, the narrator also seems to look upon this way of loving with longing. She seeks the stories of the past, “Hunt[ing] the amorous line” (line 6). This way of love is how she wants to feel, and

Ever since the beginning of time, love has played an enormous role among humans. Everyone feels a need to love and to be loved. Some attempt to fill this yearning with activities and possessions that will not satisfy – with activities in which they should not participate and possessions they should not own. In Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” the speaker encounters an emotion some would call love but fits better under the designation of lust for a woman. In contrast, the speaker of Robert Herrick’s poem, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” urges virgins to marry, to make a lasting commitment in which love plays a

It is important to note that the first eight lines are a part of a single sentence. This is important because it means that if we remove the repeated poetic verse found within these lines, we discover that Millay is simply saying “Love is not all… / Yet many a man is making friends with death / Even as I speak, for lack of love alone” (1-8) . This is a justifiable conclusion because after the words “Love is not all” the author uses a colon, which means that the lines following are simply a definition for what she means by “Love is not all” (1) . When put in such simple terms, it’s easy to see how this is almost indistinguishable from saying, “Love is not all, but it would be better to be dead than not have it.”

Love throughout the years has been interpreted as an intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my partner"). Love can also refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the emotional closeness of familial love, or to the platonic love that defines friendship, to the profound union or devotion of religious love. Love had been defined by individuals to get close to someone who have actual feelings for or deeply care about, and one that you will actually risk your life for. But now, love has been given a bad reputation because now some people are only interested in having non-intimate sex with others. People prefer temporary relationships, instead of dedicating their lives to their loved ones. These types of

In Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Love is Not All (Sonnet XXX),” the poem’s writer originally discredits the value of love, claiming that it is not essential because it does not support life; however, later Millay describes that love has some value.

“If you love something, let it go” -Unknown. In life, relationships have both good and bad characteristics. Not everything is always sunshine and roses. Multiple examples of sacrifice can be found in a book or poem.

If society was a person in itself, it would be a criminal. It has deceived human beings into believing that love is supposed to be something that is always beautiful, euphoric and extremely powerful. It pressures individuals into commitment, passion and desire while simultaneously reminding them that an excess of one thing is not good. Society need to make up its mind. As the world knows, love is not simply defined as a group of words; rather, it is many things that are rooted to deep affection. Love presents itself in different shapes, forms and sizes, but what happens to this endearment when it is one-sided? The sole attribute that every individual seek has the potential to destroy most. Unrequited love poisons the character

The ability to love is possibly one of the most recurring aspects of humanity. Everyday people fall in and out of love with each other 's personalities, opinions and lifestyle choices. In his novel 1984, George Orwell depicts a dystopian, loveless society. The technology, newspeak, and doublethink force conformity on Oceania, the setting of the book. The lack of diversity in people creates a world, where there isn’t any reason to love anyone else. Family relationships that were formerly built with love, support, and loyalty are ripped away and replaced with distrust, anxiety and hostility. Sexual relationships no longer have love or pleasure, which makes them mean virtually nothing, except the hope of

What is Love? Does anyone really know the meaning of the word? Does it have a different meaning to different people? In Kipnis’s essay “Love Labors”, Laura Kipnis touches on many different aspects of love. This is a touchy subject simply because love brings out many different opinions and beliefs. Kipnis argues over the fact that in order to have a good relationship and love someone people have to be able to meet certain requirements, which are mutuality, communication, and advanced intimacy.

Love is said to be the greatest human experience in which mankind are privilege to partake in. To love can be a wondrous experience filling life with bliss and other strong emotions. Some people believe to love is to be alive and be able to see the good in the world and others. The purpose of this paper is to examine and find a better understanding of what is love, to explore what people believe love to be, and what lies surround the perception of love and to explore and expose what the meaning true love is or at the very least the authors understanding of the perception of love. In addition to exploring the concept, deception and the truth of love,

Sharon Olds in "True Love" wonders about a true meaning of love in her uniquely written poem about a married couple. She hints that true love is about belonging to one another. That belonging or self-possession is reflected via ties of marriage. She further says that children, which are a product of marriage, only tighten marital bonds even more. The speaker starts her poem by describing two people having sex and looking at each other in a “complete friendship”. However, as much as the poem at first seems to have a positive meaning, the message appears to be quite opposite. In fact, “after making love, we look at each other in complete friendship" (2-3) sounds odd if used when describing the love between friends with benefits or a married couple. Friends with benefits contribute to unhealthy relationships that they are in, which is built on lust and only physical desire. Her poem, perhaps is an ironic portrayal of true love. A true love, if it even exists, is very difficult to preserve and can take a different turn especially within the marriage.

While people are often able to identify when they feel the emotion love, love itself seems to defy definition.  In her polemic “Against Love”, Laura Kipnis argues that love cannot exist as traditional expressions of love such as marriage, monogamy, and mutuality.  However, in her argument, she defines love incorrectly by equating love to expressions of love. This definition lacks a component essential to understanding the abstract concept of love: emotion. Recognizing love as emotion helps us realize that, contrary to Kipnis’ argument love by nature transcends all expressions of love. Love is subjective and exists in any and all forms. In her argument that love cannot survive as conventional expressions of love, Kipnis ignores the nature of love as emotion in favor of equating love to different expressions of love. Love is a force which exists above expressions of love; a true understanding of love can only come from an assessment of how individuals, not societies, respond to the emotion.

Although love can be the most wonderful feeling in the world, it is not the answer to all of one’s problems. Edna St. Vincent Millay, author of “Love Is Not All,” makes this clear in her poem. She states that love “…is not meat nor drink/ Nor slumber nor a roof against the

The other day I was babysitting my three-year-old niece, a most conniving little angel. As she sat gawking at my girlfriend's brother, Matthew, who was eating potato chips, she told me that she loved me "so much." She had already devoured her potato chips, but she obviously wanted more. Many more expressions of love proceeded to drip from her lips. Finally, the question came; "Reg, can I have some more chips?" At first, I thought this little show of bribery was cute and funny, but then I started to think about the true meaning of love. What is true love? Poets, philosophers, religious leaders, and the American media all have different definitions for this word. Too often, love is conceived as doing whatever it

How has our perception of love changed throughout the centuries? In today’s media, our perception of romance has been distorted due to movies, tv shows, and songs. While in the Middle Ages, literature and ballads were how most people learned about romantic love. “Stories told through the ages to describe variations of love as it is found, challenged, lost, denied or thwarted, only to flare up again, carrying all before it, or else destroying the lovers in a conflagration of desire .” Although, our culture is more open and accepting of relationships, in the Middle Ages, secrecy and adulterous relationships were normal in order to have love and romance.