Paper Topic:
Edna St. Vincent Millays `Love Is Not All`
Your first and last name Name of Instructor title and course number 6 December 2008 Edna St . Vincent Millay 's Love is Not All Based only on reading the sonnet , the speaker may or may not be the poet (although , in fact , Millay did describe herself as the speaker Gale . When reading love sonnets , most of us assume the poem reflects the poet 's personal feelings at the time of writing . However , just as writing in the fist person in novels is a literary technique , rather than a statement that
the novel is autobiographical , Millay may have been writing from the point-of-view of another person , fictional or real , or even as she had felt at an earlier time . It 's true that at the time Millay was writing , the generic he ' or man ' was accepted usage , which certainly could explain her phrase many a man (line 7 However , it was not unusual for the term , in fact , to be used gender specifically , as in All men are created equal , endowed with the same rights ' Regarding love relationships in particular , was there ever a time when man ' was used generically ? Consider the question , Why did early man take no responsibility in caring for his young ' If man ' and his ' were being used generically , it wouldn 't seem bizarre , as it clearly does , to rephrase the question , Why did early men and women take no responsibility in caring for their young Thus the most reasonable conclusion would be that the speaker in...
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