Point of View

"What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" is written from the first-person perspective of the speaker. This is a common point of view for the sonnet form, which tend to be lyric poems of a more confessional nature. In the case of the poem, the interiority created by the first-person perspective helps draw the reader closer to the speaker as she recalls moments from her past; she shares sensual, intimate details with the reader that reflect the way she perceives her past in her own mind. That the poem is written from the first-person perspective also helps support the reading that the speaker is more perturbed by the loss of her youth and vitality than the loss of any one particular "unremembered lad" from her past (7).

Language and Meaning

The language of "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" is accessible, and readers will likely find few...