“Love is not all: it is neither flesh nor drink” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, is a sonnet that focuses primarily on dealing the trivialization of love. This poem expresses that love is not the most important thing in life, but you would essentially do anything for it. Examining how love is trivialized throughout the poem, Millay uses imagery and other literary devices to help convey the underlying messages, the speaker expresses her thoughts on falling in love by bluntly describing the most basic necessities of life and is used the speaker's transition from cynical thoughts to emphasizing his real intentions by the end of the poem. By analyzing these factors, we can determine how love is trivialized and demonstrated through the eyes of the narrator in the poem. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay There are many literary devices used in poetry to help convey specific messages. By examining examples of imagery, paradox, and metonymy, we can see that Millay illustrates her thoughts to help conclude her trivialization of love. The imagery is found primarily at the beginning of the sonnet, where the speaker goes on to explain that love is not one of the basic necessities of life. In Millay's work, she uses darker tones to exemplify the importance of practicalities, to attempt to highlight the idea that love is unnecessary. “Flesh nor drink / Nor sleep nor a roof against the rain,” Millay uses imagery to convey a dark tone to consider love insignificant in our daily lives. (1-2). For example, the author points out that love cannot “fill the enlarged lung with breath” (5). Breathing is one of the most important needs for human existence; without oxygen we all die. The narrator also states that love cannot protect or save us from physical danger, thus “a floating rod for sinking men / And rising and sinking” (3-4). Love is also incapable of “cleaning the blood” or “mending the broken bone” (6). It seems that (from the narrator's point of view) love's hands are tied, preventing it from helping us in a physical way. Metonymy is used through the word “death” in line 7, which is called love. The paradox: “Yet many men befriend death / Even as I speak, only for lack of love” exemplifies that love cannot sustain us physically or save us from harm, because it seems absurd that “lack of love alone ” pushes humans to death (7-8). Throughout the poem, the speaker expresses her feelings of love by describing the needs of life. Millay uses common images such as food, drink, and shelter to show the reader what love is incapable of doing. Furthermore, love cannot replace “flesh or drink” (1); it is unable to quench the physical desires of hunger or thirst. Furthermore, even though the body may be tired, love cannot replace “sleep” or provide “a roof against the rain” (2). Love evidently lacks the essential material needs for survival. Our physical needs and desires cannot be quenched by love alone. Why love is so extremely important for survival when it is not a physical need, and why it causes so much pain?