Millay vs. Shakespeare: Love, Loss and Lament

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

In Sonnet 116, Shakespeare defines love by way of truth. He begins not by launching into a discourse on the nature of love but on the nature of marriage, which, he implies, is built on commitment and truth: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments." If two people are honest and truthful then they will have understood just what is expected of them in their marriage vows therefore, the poet sees no reason to object. Love follows on truth, he seems to say.

William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116” and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Love Is Not All” both attempt to define love, by telling what love is and what it is not. Shakespeare’s sonnet praises love and speaks of love in its most ideal form, while Millay’s poem begins by giving the impression that the speaker feels that love is not all, but during the unfolding of the poem we find the ironic truth that love is all. Shakespeare, on the other hand, depicts love as perfect and necessary from the beginning to the end of his poem. Although these two authors have taken two completely different approaches, both have worked to show the importance of love and to define it. However, Shakespeare is most confident of his definition of love, while Millay seems

William Shakespeare, a genius of his time and author of Romeo and Juliet, created conflicting ideas between true love and courtly love throughout his play. He defines true love as clear and simple, and courtly love as complex and not legitimate. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses figurative language to show the contrast between true and courtly love.

Both of these poems talks about selling and money and young men’s lives, but they are both unquestionably different.

Indian activist, Mahatma Gandhi, once said, “Love is one of the most powerful forces of the world.” “Cyrano de Bergerac” is a French play that’s about a man who falls for a girl who doesn’t love him back. “Sonnet 18”, also known as “Shall I compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”, is one of Shakespeare's famous poems and it compares a woman to a summer day. Both brilliant allegories have many similarities in their massages despite being written almost three hundred years apart. Regardless of basic plot and word length, both stories posses surprisingly identical messages. Edmond Rostand's, “Cyrano de Bergerac”, and Shakespeare's, “Sonnet 18” both exhibit their themes of love, but while Rostand does it more through metaphors, Shakespeare does it more through personification.

Both speakers in the poems share the idea that no one is perfect. Love can see through and overcome the imperfections in someone. No matter the nature of their relationships, both speakers can relate in that the people mentioned in their poems are flawed. However, they are able to subside their flawed character and move past it.

Therefore we have two poems which are deliberately changing their structure from the norm in order to create effect. However, these effects have totally different intentions, which lead to the end of the similarities and the first of many differences between the two poems.

Both poems contain the message of love, which is presented very well across both poems from start to finish. But the poems are very different to each other using different techniques and phrases. In this text i will be analysing both poems and finding the differences and similarity throughout the text. ‘To His Coy Mistress’ is a very old English text which was written by a man to express his love towards a girl which he had feelings for. This poem was made during the war, when time was short and things were very critical in the country. Love was a very rare thing in this time finding it as well was hard. Over time we can see that love has changed throughout the years by these poems. To His Coy Mistress is very demanding and some bribing involved.

The two poems use similar poetic devices and both poets use tons of figurative language. In Shakespeare’s poem, he uses metaphors, personification, and repetition. To start, he says, “It is the star to every wandering bark,” (7). This metaphor is used to compare love to a lost person following a star to try to find a way home. In the poem, there is also some personification. It says, “Love’s not Time’s fool,” (9), which is giving love, an inanimate thing, human characteristics. Last but not least, there is repetition in the poem. The quote, “Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove,” (11), is a form of repetition used to help emphasize the poem. All of these literary devices are used to help convey Shakespeare’s message in a more emotional and powerful way.

‘Sonnet 116’ by William Shakespeare and ‘What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay are both sonnets that discuss companionship and a glimpse of each poet’s experiences. In ‘Sonnet 116’, Shakespeare illustrates how capability is weakened by its metaphysical stereotype and ideals such as, love, while on the contrary, in ‘What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why” Millay feeds on the chaos between the ideal of love and its harsh reality, heartbreak. Both poets seem to be love struck but there is a significant difference in the two. I will compare and contrast ‘Sonnet 116’ by William Shakespeare and ‘What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I will also inquire and analyze why this particular form of poetry established different effects.

The poem “How Do I Love Thee”, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed”, by Edna Vincent Millay are both well-known poems that both have themes of love. (LIT, Kirszner & Mandell, Pg. 490). In both poems the poet helps the reader experience a lot of emotion with the use of certain words. There are speakers in both poems. In Mrs. Browning’s poem, the speaker is undefined, leaving open that the speaker could be a he or she. Millay’s poem which is written in first person, the speaker is more defined leading the reader to believe it is a she who is talking about love in the past tense. Both poems are sonnets written with fourteen lines, and written in Italian style. When comparing these poems we will be looking at the use of rhyme scheme and metaphors and how they were used to express emotions in these two sonnet poems.

The title of the poem “My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun” suggests that the speaker is not in love with his ‘mistress’. However, this is not the case. Shakespeare uses figurative language by using criticizing hyperboles to mock the traditional love sonnet. Thus, showing not only that the ideal woman is not always a ‘goddess’, but mocking the way others write about love. Shakespeare proves that love can be written about and accomplished without the artificial and exuberant. The speaker’s tone is ironic, sarcastic, and comical turning the traditional conceit around using satire. The traditional iambic pentameter rhyming scheme of the sonnet makes the diction fall into place as relaxed, truthful, and with elegance in the easy flowing verse. In turn, making this sonnet one of parody and real love.

He starts with rejecting the marriage done for logical and sensible reasons stating that there are too many obstructions in the path of such relationships. He then condemns the love which changes with the changing circumstances of life, or ends with death, claiming that that isn’t true love. Comparing it to the North Star and using nautical terms, Shakespeare then designate love as a solid constant remainder. He describes the intensity and ferocity of the emotion as such that people who are in love do not back down from whatever challenges and difficulties life throws at them, but face them with

William Shakespeare is recognized for being one of greatest poets of all time. His works are still popular to this day. Many of his works included extended metaphors and similes with rhetorical language and were rooted in the nature of love. Two of his poems that are rather alike, but also very contrastive are “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and “My mistresses’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” They both contain a core theme of love or anti-love in some aspects. While these two poems are built around the same type of subject, their interpretations come across in separate ways. In contrast to Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” which is a serious love poem that contains imagery and metaphors, Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” is more negative and humorous but contains imagery and similes.