Analysis on "Love is Not Blind" - Millay's sonnet xxvi.
In this sonnet "Love is Not Blind", Edna St. Vincent Millay demonstrates the unconformity against the traditions of the society, particularly her opposition to the Petrarchan notions about beauty and love. As a result, the purpose of this poem is to strongly illustrate the difficulty for people at that time to express his or her love for someone, given that certain measures and normative ideals has already been imposed in the western hemisphere.
Unlike Petrarch's sonnet, in which the lover is absolutely faultless in the speaker's eye, Millay rejects the conventional idea of love that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Her sonnet starts with the statement that "love is not blind", which indicates that Millay's speaker is capable of seeing the imperfections of his or her lover. The common western concept suggests that people in love are usually undiscerning to their lover's faults and imperfections. However, the speaker in Millay's sonnet tells the audience that although she is in love, she still clearly sees that her lover fails to meet the perfect standard of beauty.
Similar to Shakespeare's sonnet 130, Millay then draws a comparison between the mistress' ugliness and other women's grace. It is obvious to note that both sonnets somehow criticize the conventional love poetry, in which the matchless and angelic physical features of the love-object are praised. According to Shakespeare, this is how his lady looks like: "eyes are nothing like the sun," "her breasts are dun," and "black wires grow on her head". Whereas Shakespeare devotes his entire poem on depicting the ugly appearance of his mistress in great details, on contrary, Millay's physical description is incredibly short. Despite the direct mention if her lover's "ugliness", it only takes her two lines to list the physical imperfections in brevity.
Edna St. Vincent Millay: Controversial Writer and Inspiration Edna St. Vincent Millay was a poet and playwright. She was famous for writing controversial descriptions of female sexuality and feminism. Her struggle in the literary world did not go unnoticed. While many female authors were not ackn...