Sad,+Bittersweet,+or+Cute?

Charlotte Mew's poem, "A Quoi Bon Dire" was wonderful to me. I enjoyed it every time I reread it. I like how it showed that true love remains in the hearts of those they love. I took the last stanza to show how future love will go on as special as the old couple's love is. As a new boy and girl promise their love for each other, the older couple are watching over them and smiling together. The question was brought up if this poem was more cute or sad. I guess since it's mentioning lovers preparing for death, it's dealing with a sad topic. However, I only see the positive side and hopefulness in this poem. Did you take this poem as mostly sad, bittersweet, or cute? 1205293534

I think that this poem is more bittersweet. It’s about how love continues even when one of the partners dies. The sweet part is that it continues and that whoever is still alive still feels that connection with the deceased lover. The bitter part is that one of them is dead and has been dead for over 17 years. This poem definitely has a positive message about the eternal nature of love. I don’t see, however, how this poem really conveys any sense of hopefulness because what is there to hope for? The only thing that I can think of is that when the surviving lover dies that he or she will join his or her partner in heaven. But even then, I don’t get the sense that the surviving lover is wanting to die. He or she is obviously preparing for it by saying goodbye to various people and things but not looking forward to it. 1205355418

It's definitely better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. This is what this poem is all about. The old woman isn't alone and sad that she lost her lover, but rather she is happy that she had the time she had with him. She is grateful for the love they shared. What she has to hope for is that others can have the same love that she and her partner had. What I think is cute about this is that it's an entirely selfless thought. Rather than seeing the new love and feeling sad in remembering what she lost, she looks to the future of future loves for others. She has already been with the love of her life, and she realizes that even though he is gone she will always have that love and the memories they had together with her. Now she wants others to feel the same way she once felt, and still feels. 1205358243

I absolutely loved this poem from the moment we read it. Even though the first spouse died over seventeen years ago, the two lovers have never been separated. Their love connects them, even thought they are no longer physically together. After we read this poem, Brother Tom asked our class if this poem was meant to be sarcastic. At first, I was completely confused. But then we discussed the last stanza as a class. Someone in our class mention that the new young lovers mention could be seen as sarcasm. They think that they are the only ones to have loved so deeply and so sincerely, but the narrator knows that they are not, because she and her lover felt the same way. Does this poem imply that all lovers think they are special, when they really are not? It might, I still haven't decided, but I like to think of the last stanza in a slightly different way. The older lovers (together) are happy and reminiscent of the start of their own love affair. I do not think that this poem is in the least bit trying to knock love for being typical or average. Any other ideas? 1205358607

I think that this is both a bittersweet and cute poem because yes the relationship is long over, but the speaker of the poem still has so many great memories from the relationship that he/she can still smile and be happy about it. Yes, relationships can and do and but the experiences and lessons of the relationship don't go away nor do the memories of all the good times during it. I will say though that I don't at all see the sarcasm because I see the last stanza more as taking a tone of an older, wiser person seeing two young people falling in love and recalling just how similar it is to the relationship he once had. The last two lines of the poem read "while over there/ you will have smiled, I shall have tossed your hair," and I take this as more the speaker just sort of shrugging and smiling happily at the thought of young love. Perhaps this thought of young lovers makes the speaker reminisce about when he fell in love, but I'm not entirely sure.

Getting away from the topic of lovers, I think this poem generally applies to whenever someone loses someone that they cared about. For me, it reminded me of my Grandpa who died ten years ago, but who is still alive to me in the sense that I can still remember his voice and I can still remember what he looked like and how he acted. In that sense he is still alive because I can still remember him and he still influences me even from beyond the grave. I think that this poem is about how we don't really lose the ones we love when they die because they still live on in our hearts. Death and separation do not destroy emotions and as long as an emotional connection exists, the person is not entirely dead, but is rather just physically dead.1205362470

KRi I think that was extremely insightful of you. This is deep poem. I am unsure if it is the man or the women that has passed away though. It might make slightly more sense if he"shall have tossed" her "hair," but nonetheless this poem is so logical though at first it does not seem this way. "Everybody thinks that you are dead, But I." Yeah that sounds a little crazy for someone is imagining that some one else is still alive, but really I think that it is saying that the lovers is still alive in the heart of this person. And of course this person is old, but the dead lover still sees a romantic, passiontic youth it this aging body. I mean yes it is bittersweet for this person has been with his or her lover for 17 years, but its also really cute that this fire and passion is still burning and felt after so long too. Any other comments? 1205366873

Honestly, the first thing that I thought of after I read the poem was the novel "The Notebook." Basically it talks of a couple's undying love for each other even thought sickness and disease separate the two sometimes. This poem made me think that one of the two was reflecting, maybe talking to the other who has passed away, and thinking about how strong their love is and how they still remain together even though one has died. I thought that the last stanza was just the narrator talking to the other, pondering what might happen in a specific circumstance. I agree that this poem is a great example of true love and how death and separation do not always destroy a bond two people share. All in all, I never got the feeling of bitterness or sadness. It felt like the one person was just pondering about the other and it was a positive remembrance, not an unhappy one. 1205367541

I truly enjoyed this poem too. I suppose I am a sentimentalist, because I really do enjoy the idea of two people who still love each other after all of this time, regardless of what has happened between the two of them. It is obvious that they don't believe that anyone else could possibly feel the same way about love as they did. When Mew wrote the "but you" and "but I" comments, it was clear that the speaker in the poem was feeling isolated and deeply missing the person whom she loved. She felt that nobody in the world understood her anymore, and she was certainly the only one who had understood him, because everyone else considered him to be dead but her. He still lives on to her, and she never learned how to move past him. She knows that he never learned to move past her either, and she is certain that nobody will love like they have loved. It's really sad, but beautiful as well. 1205371613

I also found this poem to be very beautiful and cute. Yes, it is bitter considering they physically have lost each other, but the fact that they still have this strong connection makes this poem incredible. The fact that love conquers all, even death is such an amazing concept. In regards to the sarcasm of the final stanza, I can see it. I wouldn't exactly call it sarcasm, but I see it as the narrator just kind of laughing at the rest of the world. I think that the whole concept of people thinking their love is the purest love prevails in this stanza. When people are in love they think "no one can feel the way I feel right now. No one can understand exactly how much I love you. Our love is the greatest love of all." Thats why when the narrator sees a boy and a girl meet and kiss and "swear that nobody can love their way again" the narrator just smiles. Because the narrator feels that no one can feel the love that they shared with their lover. 1205376320

In the movie, "The Princess Bride," Wesley and Princess Buttercup fall in love, and thier love is true, much like I believe the boy and girl in Mew's poem are. There is a line in which Wesley tells his love (after she asks hows he's alive, because she thought that he was dead) that death cannot stop true love, it can only delay it for awhile. That faith in love is ispiring. The word beautiful doesn't seem to do the essence of it justice. I think we all want to belive in love like that, and I know it exists in this world, both more and less than we know. Love should be cherished and not taken for granted. Love should not be underestimated either. Seventeen years being away from your love seems like forever to us on earth, but for true love, it's only a blink. Love never gives up and honors the truth in the heart, much like the couple in this poem who sees that not even death cannot tear them apart. 1205405723

I must say, this poem reminds me SO much of the notebook. The obvious correlation to me is that in both the poem and the notebook the narrators (in the notebook Noah) and in this poem know that their significant other is alive when he/she is dead to everyone else. In the notebook, Allie has an illness in witch she is living, but never really present. Noah thinks that if he reads her their story, that she will come back to him---and she does. Noah has faith in her, and when everyone says she is dead, just forget about her, he persists. This poem is neither sad, bittersweet or cute, it is a love poem all the way through. He still loves her, even though she is dead, and he will see her in heaven, loving her like nothing has changed. That is, if the narrator is a man, speaking about the love of his life. Awww.1205455875

Thank you MRo. I was totally the one that argued for this poem as a sad poem in period G. I read it and was instantly drawn to the beauty of the words, and after I finished I sighed. The poem spoke of the sadness involved in humans loving. Seventeen years ago the narrator's lover died. However, to the narrator the person is still alive. The narrator is living still in love with a person that has moved on, a person that is gone. The pain for the narrator must be immense. No matter how pure the love is, no matter how fondly the narrator thinks of the lover, the narrator will be sad. Also, as MRo said, during this time no one else understands why the narrator still feels like the lover is still alive. It is tragic. The next stanza talks about the narrator dying. If that is not sad, then what is. Yes, it is beautiful too, but so terribly sad. Someone so full of love in our world is dying. Dying, and no one recognizes that the narrator is living for this past love. Finally, in the last stanza the narrator and the narrator's lover see another boy and girl meet and kiss. Those two will only end up like the narrator. Old, dying, and alone with their past love as their only company. Perhaps I am completely wrong, but when I read this poem I find myself somber. Two pure lovers lived in our world. One died with no one understanding their love. 1205464651

I have quite the opposite opinion compared to the two posts above me. I think the poem is "cute." I don't know if I would necessarily call it cute, but that'll work for what I am going to say. The poem is about two young people falling in love. I would say that the vast, vast, vast majority of people would agree on this incident as something happy. Love is viewed as a happy, cherished, and desired thing in our world. In the case of the older couple, this is true. They found the happiness they desired and cherished it for all of their life they spent together. However, even though their life on Earth together is about to end, that doesn't mean that they will fall out of love. I think that in the poem, the couple's love is so strong that could outlast anything. Death won't stop them for anything. That's what makes the poem cute. The idea of love is so strong. We see love in two different age groups, yet the older couple seems like they are just as in love as when they fell in love. I find that uplifting.1205465238