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Millay, Edna St. Vincent. "Edna St. Vincent Millay - Love Is Not All." 21 Feb 2007 2 May 2008 .

The poem, “Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink” by Edna St. Vincent Millay dramatizes the necessity of love, particularly stating that love, itself, is not a basic necessity, however, everybody still desires to find it. Upon reading the title, one may view it as Millay’s bitterness towards the abstract idea of love, because, after all, it doesn’t provide any of the provisions required to live. However, by the end, the reader is able to grasp the idea that although love is not a basic need in order to survive, many can die without it.
The title sets the stage for the first six lines of the poem, contradicting the title with the ironic reality that love is, indeed, “all.” She exposes the insufficiency of love when contrasted with all things needed for survival. Millay lists such things, for which love is no substitute: “Love is not all: it is not meat or drink/ Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; /Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink/ And rise and sink and rise and sink again; / Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath, / Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone” (Millay 1-6). The author successfully covers all things humans require to survive and confirms love cannot do any of these things for us. Love cannot fulfill one’s need for food and water, love cannot shelter one “against the rain” (2), love cannot save drowning men that “sink and rise and sink again” (4), and finally, love cannot help us breathe, nor can it fix physical ailments. Millay shows love obviously lacks basic essence, however, she insists that one still needs love to live as presented by the following line, “Yet many a man is making friends with death/ Even as I speak, for lack of love alone” (7-8). The author initially portrays love as unfulfilling, then proceeds on to emphasizing the fact that...