Edna St. Vincent Millay's "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where and Why" is an effective short poem, which feeds on the dissonance between the ideal of love and its reality, heartbreak. In William Shakespeare's "Let Me Not to The Marriage of True Minds," the effectiveness is weakened by its idealiality and metaphysical stereotype. In contrast to Millay, Shakespeare paints a genuine portrait of what love should be but unfortunately never really is. This factor is what makes his poem difficult to relate to, thus weakening the effect on the reader. These poems were published quite far apart from each other, three-hundred and fourteen years to be exact, which might explain the shift in idealism. Though both circumnavigate the concept of love, the effect left within both writers based on personal affairs dramatically differentiates the personas of both speakers.
In Millay's poem " What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where and Why" she laments over lost lovers. Ironically, she is......

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Title: Millay Vs. Shakespeare: Love, Loss And Lament
Approximate Word Count: 1487
Approximate Pages: 6 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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