In this sonnet, St. Vincent Millay discusses the meaning
and purpose of love. I know it seems obvious (especially since most sonnets deal with
that issue), but the way she approaches it is unique and striking. At first, she seems
to suggest that most people think too much of love. After all, it is "not meat or
drink"- it can't keep you alive. It won't save you if you're drowning, and so it cannot
be what you base your existence upon. However, she quickly reverses this idea by stating
that without love, one “is making friends with death.” Thus, while love can't keep you
alive, without it you will almost surely die. At this point, the speaker begins to
question if she would be willing to trade love for life’s necessities. Would she sell
love’s memory for food? The sonnet ends with ambiguity; the speaker merely says, “I do
not think I would”. There is no real certainty there.
The
theme of this poem is quite simply that one may rely on love in life, but may be force
to give it up to seek material survival. It is not clear whether or not she supports one
scenario over the over, and again, that ambiguity is essential to her reflections on the
meaning of love. The problem of course, is that love is not all, even though we want it
to be. The central question of the poem becomes: how do we balance this need for love
with our need to survive? That is why the poem's structure is so important. St. Vincent
Millay gives the reader an ironic twist, slowly revealing that there is no right or
wrong answer to the question.
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