Love Is Not All Summary

In Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sonnet “Love is Not All’, the speaker argues that love is not the most important object in life, but you would do anything for it. In the first half, Millay declares that love is futile and meaningless to life’s need. The second half of the sonnet well outshines the first half because although she has demonstrated that love is not necessary to live, Millay argues that life isn’t worth living without it. Moreover, love is not something that will help you physically; however, it always goes back to the fact that it is the most dominant and persuasive value over you.

Millay plays on the meaning of love; love can’t save a life, nor be a shelter or a doctor. Different sections of the sonnet describe four human needs:

Millay makes it clear when she writes: “Yet many a man is making friends with death, Even as I speak, for lack of love alone”, trying to give her readers the point of view that men can die without love. A lovelorn man is closer to death. Line eight really changes the direction of this sonnet because, at first, Millay’s definition of love was worthless and now the reader notices that she starts restoring the significant importance of love. The next lines begin with “It well may be”, which introduces the reader to a hypothetical situation being “Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution’s power”. These two lines influence how the reader portrays love because nothing is more important then filling that hole in our heart when love is missing. At the end of the sonnet, Millay offers a plausible solution to fill her human needs as she “might be driven to sell your love for peace” for it would release her from the horrible pains. She might “trade the memory of this night for food” to feed her starving stomach. For all that love is, Millay reveals everything when she writes: “It well may be I do not think I would” meaning that love is not all, but she would rather be dead than not have