A Quoi Bon Dire Flashcards
When was this poem published? Part of what anthology?
- 1916
- Part of: The Farmer’s Bride anthology
What are the main ideas around love in this poem?
1.) Love overrides death
2.) Love as universal but also private experience.
3.) Conflict between eternal love and temporary life.
Significance of poem being in French?
- French = language of love –> presenting the pair’s love.
- No one will understand the pair’s love (perhaps due to the fact it could be a lesbian relationship.)
What is the form of the poem and what is the rhyme scheme like?
- Lyrical poem –> beauty/ harmony that comes from the pair’s love.
- Rhyme scheme = regular. Creates romantic rhythm to the poem. (shows ever-lasting bond between lovers, even after death.)
How does the poem start?
- Narrator speaks about time her lover died and said “something that sounded like goodbye.”
- Simile implies that although the lover said these words, it wasn’t ACTUALLY good-bye, because the pair will always be united.
- “sounded”: also shows distant memory of incident, connoting to narrator’s old age.
Who is the poet? Context about her?
- Charlotte Mew.
- Her father died when she was young/ comitted suicide when her sister fell ill (lengths she went to because of love.)
- Thought to be a closeted lesbian because she never married.
- Themes of her poetry include: displacement, isolation, alienation –> not feeling connected to society.
Significance of the poem being in first person.
- Perhaps shows that the love is Mew’s personal experience.
Significance of poem starting with time reference
- “seventeen years ago.”
- Shows the narrator’s old age (impending death) whilst also showing their nostalgia/ inability to move on, no matter how long it has been
Significance of narrator repeatedly using the words “you” rather than saying a name.
- Shows the personal love between the pair, Mew doesn’t feel like she should have to translate this love so the reader understands.
- Lack of gender: linking to Mew being a lesbian, also, shows universal nature of love - the lover could be of any gender!!
What are the parallels between stanza 1 and 2 of this poem?
- Same language
- Stanza 1: “goodbye”, “everybody”, “but I.”
- Stanza 2: “goodbye”, “everybody”, “but you.”
- Repetition of euphemism “goodbye” to show that both are dead now.
- Mirrors parallels between the lovers, if one goes through an experience the same experience happens to the other –> shows their connection.
How is the theme of aging explored in the second stanza of this poem?
- Narrator described to be “stiff and cold.”
- “Stiff” from lack of movement. “Cold” –> again, occurs with old age but could be EMOTIONALLY: doesn’t have the warmth of her partner.
Significance of phrase “to this and that I say goodbye too” - in the second stanza?
- Coloquialism
- Shows how narrator views life as trivial in comparison to the love they have that will last forever, doesn’t end, even with death.
What do the full stops after “but you” and “but I” show?
- Shows definite nature of narrator that the pair will be reuinted.
Significance of how thirs stanza begins?
- “And one morning in a sunny lane.”
- “and” –> shows that after the narrator’s death, she was immediately reuinted with her lover, never came to an end - even for a moment.
- “sunny lane”: pastoral imagery. Shows the brightness and hope now that they are reuinted. Heaven-like location. Symbol of new beginning.
- “one fine morning”: language of fairy tales- shows that the pair will live in beautiful fantasy in heaven after they die.
What does A quoi bon dire translate to? Significance?
- “What’s good in there saying?”
- No words can describe their love, no point describing it.
- No point in them saying they love each other when this fact is just known to the pair.
What does the narrator describe seeing in the heaven-like location?
- “boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear.”
- Showing how love is a universal experience. New couples all united by conviction that their love is unique.
- Could argue the “boy and girl” is the narrator with their lover.
- Syndetic listing: “and” –> breathlesness of youth/ universal feeling of excitement when falling in love.
Significance of narrator calling place where the lover’s reuinte as “over there”?
- Ambigious
- Allows the reader to determine for themselves where this place would be, perhaps to allow reader to conect on personal level to the love described Ie. if the reader doesn’t believe in afterlife, heaven isn’t directly mentioned - it is wherever the reader wants it to be. Make poem quite universal.
Mew’s main purpose
- Showing that ever-lasting love will never be defeated and people should have hope and confidence in the fact that they will meet again with their lovers.
- Triviality of love in comparison to eternal love.
Significance of last line of this poem.
- “you will have smiled and i shall have tossed your hair.”
- “will”/ “shall” –> definite that they will be reunited.
- “tossed your hair”: symbol of youth/ juxtaposing old-age imagery used previously.
- “tossed”- physical strength narrator has now (young!) but also carefree nature.
- “hair”–> symbol of youth.
Significance of the sibilance throughout the poem. Give one example.
- “something that sounded like Goodbye.”
- Sibilance throughout whole poem creates rhythmic/ lyrical sense –> like a song (mirrors beauty of their love.)
- sss sound is quite persistent - showing how pairs love is everlasting, won’t break even by death.
