Edna St. Vincent Millay What Lips My Lips Have Kissed

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“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

In the poem “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why ” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the author sadly reminisces on her past youth through the use of literary concepts such as tone, diction, figurative language, and structure to emphasize the meaning of the poem. The structure of the poem is broken up into two stanza, heach one sentence. The first stanza is an octave and the second a sestet. The structure of the first stanza being longer than the second seems to emulate the way the author is reminiscing on the days when she had a lot of love and affection from many people. The first line (which is also the title of the poem) is the longest line in the poem with ten words, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” which puts emphasis on the meaning of this poem. Millay was a modernist poet who liked breaking the normal literary rules and social standards. This poem shows this through her being unashamed of admitting she’s had many sexual relationships with people since it was unusual for women to speak out theri sexuallity …show more content…

This is also where she shifts from reminiscing on her past to her being more remorseful towards the fact that she may never experience those kinds of relationships in her future as she is getting older. Millay also breaks her past tense pattern in the very last line of the poem saying, “that in me sings no more”. Throughout the whole poem she uses past tense words such as “sang”, “vanished”, and “unremembered”, however here she says “sings” emphasizing that she now relizes that she will never have those kinds of opportunities coming to her. Here, Millay also uses more figurative language to express her sadness and bring her poem to

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