Most Romantic lines in Literature

[Rosie Cotton]

I'm working on a project to get teenage girls to read quality literature. As such, I've been asked to compile a list of the most romantic lines in literature. So far, here's what I have:

“You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.”—Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy “Pride and Prejudice”

“Katerina Sergeevna! It’s probably all the same to you, but you should know that not only wouldn’t I trade you for your sister, I wouldn’t trade you for anyone else in the world.”—Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov “Fathers and Children”

"'Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!'
'Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness.'"—Margaret Hale and John Thornton, “North and South”

"One word more. You look as if you thought it tainted you to be loved by me. You cannot avoid it. Nay, I, if I would, cannot cleanse you from it. But I would not, if I could. I have never loved any woman before: my life has been too busy, my thoughts too much absorbed with other things. Now I love, and will love. But do not be afraid of too much expression on my part." –John Thornton “North and South”

“You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how.”—Rhett Butler “Gone with the Wind”

"’When a man is not loved, it is no use for him to say that he could be a better fellow - could do anything - I mean, if he were sure of being loved in return.’
‘On the contrary, I think it would be wicked in me to marry you even if I did love you.’"—Mary Garth and Fred Vincey “Middlemarch” (I know it doesn’t sound romantic out of context, but it really is)

Abra's conversation with Caleb in "East of Eden"

“I love you irrevocably, forever and ever; I love no one else but you. I wanted to tell you, find out your opinion and ask for your hand, because I’m not a wealthy man and I feel I’m ready to make any sacrifice…You’re not answering? You don’t believe me? You don’t think I’m serious? Just consider these last few days! Surely you must be convinced by now that everything—understand what I say—everything else has long since disappeared without trace. Look at me, say one word…I love…I love you…please believe me! ” –Arkady Nikolaevich Kirsanov “Fathers and Children”

"For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!" –Mr. Sydney Carton, “A Tale of Two Cities”

"I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her."—Mr. Charles Darnay, “A Tale of Two Cities”

Not a line, but that entire acronym-chalk-on-the-table exchange in “Anna Karenina”

Marius’ letter to Cosette from Les Miserables

“My life's work has been to prompt others and be forgotten. Remember that night when Christian came to your balcony? That moment sums up my life. While I was below in the shadows, others climbed up to kiss the sweet rose.”—Cyrano de Bergerac “Cyrano de Bergerac”

“My dear love, I never loved you!”—Cyrano de Bergerac “Cyrano de Bergerac”


Any thoughts?

[kiki1982]

I have a few ideas:

"Rosa baissa les yeux toute rougissante. De sorte qu'elle ne vit pas s'approcher les lèvres de Cornélius qui ne rencontrèrent hélas! que le grillage; mais qui malgré cet obstacle, envoyèrent jusqu'aux lèvres de la jeune fille le souffle ardent du plus tendre des baisers." (La Tulipe Noire, Alexandre Dumas, 1850)

"Rosa looked down, blushing. So that she did not see approaching the lips of Cornelius, which only met alas! the bars of his cell; but which, despite this obstacle, sent the lips of the young girl the ardent breath of the most tendre of kisses." (The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas, 1850)

Later more.

University challenge first .

So, now that's out of the way, we can continue...

Two excerpts of Cyrano de Bergerac

"J'ai fait [de l'esprit] pour vous faire rester
D'abord, mais maintenant ce serai insulter
Cette nuit, ces parfums, cette heure, la Nature,
Que de parler comme un billet doux de Voiture!
- Laissons, d'un seul regard de ses astres, le ciel
Vous désarmer de tout notre artificiel:
Je crains tant que parmi toute notre alchimie exquise
Le vrai du sentiment ne se volatilise,
Que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains,
Et qur le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins!" (Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII, Edmond Rostant)

And now, an attempt for translation:

"I have been [witty] to make you stay
First, but now it would be insulting
This night, these fragrances, this hour, Nature,
By talking like a love letter from Voiture!
- Let, with a single look of the stars, the sky
Disarm you of all our artificiality:
I fear so much that amongst all our exquisit alchimy
The true of the sentiment will evaporate,
That the soul will empty itself with these vain passtimes,
And that the finest will be the end of the end." (Cyrano de Bergerac, Act III, Scene VII, Edmond Rostand)

It didn't evoke the true poetry of the French which is sublime, but a little...

Another one:

"Roxane: [...] Quels mots me direz-vous?
Cyrano: Tous ceux, tous ceux, tous ceux
Qui me viendront. Je vais vous les jeter, en touffe
Sans les mettre en bouquet: je vous aime, j'étouffe,
Je t'aime, je suis fou, je n'en peux plus, c'est trop;
Ton nom est dans mon coeur come dans un grelot,
Et comme tout le temps, Roxane, je frissonne,
Tout le temps, le grelot s'agite, et le nom sonne!
De toi, je me souviens de tout, j'ai tout aimé:
Je sais que l'an dernier, un jour, le douze mai,
Pour sortir le matin tu changeas de coiffure!
J'ai tellement pris pour clarté ta chevelure
Que, comme lorsqu'on a trop fixé le soleil,
On voit sur toute chose ensuite un rond vermeil,
Sur tout, quand j'ai quitté les feux dont tu m'inondes
Mon regard ébloui pose des taches blondes!" (Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand)


"Roxane: [...] Which words will you tell me?
Cyrano: All those, all those, all those
that will come to me. I will throw them to you in bunches
Without making them into bouquets: I love you, I suffocate,
I love you, I am mad, I cannot take any more, it is too much;
Your name sits in my heart like a ball in a bell,
And as the whole time, Roxane, I tremble,
All the time, the bell trembles, and your name sounds!
By you, I remember everything, I have loved all:
I know that last year, one day, the twelfth of May,
In order to go out in the morning, you changed your hair!
I took your hair so long for light
That, like one who has focussed to much on the sun,
One sees on all things later a ring of red,
On everything, when I had left the fires which you overflow me with
My blinded look affixed blonde spots!"

Now that piece, is the most beautiful I have ever read. And I am confident, if translated well, it is truly beautiful in English too. All teenage girls *swoon*. They will never want another but Cyrano. Out goes Darcy... Sorry Austen.

[Rosie Cotton]

Thanks for your help. And if it's any consolation, I speak French as well, so I'll look over the translations and see if we can work together to help the poetry restoration.

[Modest Proposal]

A couple of Shakespeare's come to mind.

When Cleopatra asks how much Antony loves her, he says:

"There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd..."

When Romeo first sees Juliet:

"O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!"

It's funny because "Antony and Cleopatra" and "Romeo and Juliet" have become so deeply rooted in our cliche ridden colloquialisms, that at times it is easy to forget how powerful they can be.

As Nabokov, I believe said: You know, despite how popular he is, Shakespeare really is good.

It's funny that in literary circles you have to defend the validity of the accepted, rather than, in the rest of the world, where it is the other way around.

[Lulim]

There's a poem by Sara Teasdale:

The Look

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.

[OrphanPip]

Two excerpts of Cyrano de Bergerac

Je crains tant que parmi toute notre alchimie exquise
Le vrai du sentiment ne se volatilise,
Que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains,
Et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins!" (Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII, Edmond Rostant)

Maybe this translation works a bit better:

I fear that amongst our exquisite alchemy
The truth of our feelings will vaporize,
That our soul will be emptied in these vain pastimes,
And that the end of the end will be the best of all ends!

Quite the hyperbole from looking up at the stars haha.

[Scheherazade]

This line: "nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands" or the rest of the poem as well:

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

[kiki1982]

Maybe this translation works a bit better:

I fear that amongst our exquisite alchemy
The truth of our feelings will vaporize,
That our soul will be emptied in these vain pastimes,
And that the end of the end will be the best of all ends!

Quite the hyperbole from looking up at the stars haha.

Thanks for trying. I have a few remarks though.

I don't agree with 'truth' as that should be 'vérité'. That is not what Cyrano addresses. He is not saying that love letters and wit and such are lies which 'truth' would imply, but he is saying that 'the true part' of our feelings will vaporise (that's nice ). 'The true of our feelings' as a divine, constant, indestructible thing.

I think 'with these pastimes' is better as the French is 'à' and not 'dans/pendant'. As before, he is saying that the words, the wit etc will serve to obscure what really matters: the soul, the true of our feeings. And by obscuring it, it will eventually vaporise.

The last line is a great piece of French poetry. There are two words 'fin' with each a different gendre: 'le fin des fins' means 'the finest of fine things', 'la fin des fins' means 'the end of all ends'. So what he says is that he is afraid that, with those vain passtimes, the true of our feelings will be obscured and the wit will be the finest, but also the end. Whereas, to him, wit is only a means, an expression of the soul. I don't agree with that translation, but it is hard to voke the poetry of the original.

[mal4mac]

A problem with the old classics is that they can appear a bit tight-laced compared to the bawdy stuff produced by the likes of Jackie Collins. Shakespeare, as usual, is the solution. He goes infinitely beyond Jackie Collins in beauty of language and cognitive content, of course, but he even beats her in bawd:

"Of that she were / An open arse and thou a pop'rin pear"

That line should really upset parents and make Romeo & Juliet instantly attractive to teenage girls... The RSC Complete Shakespeare (or single play version) spells out all the bawd in anatomical detail. Highly recommended!

[OrphanPip]

The last line is a great piece of French poetry. There are two words 'fin' with each a different gendre: 'le fin des fins' means 'the finest of fine things', 'la fin des fins' means 'the end of all ends'. So what he says is that he is afraid that, with those vain passtimes, the true of our feelings will be obscured and the wit will be the finest, but also the end. Whereas, to him, wit is only a means, an expression of the soul. I don't agree with that translation, but it is hard to voke the poetry of the original.

I was trying to preserve the pun by using "ends" in the sense of destinations or purposes. It's a really difficult line to translate.

As to the other lines I still think truth is a better choice. Although, you're right that the word used is "true", I just feel it's painfully awkward in English.

La traduction, ce n'est pas finne! Pour moi, la poésie est trop difficile de bien traduire. I give up!

[kasie]

'...At home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be - and whenever I look up, there will be you...' Gabriel Oak's first proposal to Bathsheba Everdene in Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd. It was a rather ham-fisted attempt at a proposal and it takes the whole book for him to make a better try at it and for Bathsheba to see the worth of this good man: lots for girls to mull over as they read! It melts me whenever I read it, however, and if I'd been Bathsheba, I'd have said yes straight off - but then there wouldn't have been a story.

[L.M. The Third]

Sorry to inform you that your Mr. Darcy line is only from the movie. Maybe it shouldn't be included with the book quotes.

To add to your list:

I could not
bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need
me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you,--to wait and
endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you
of,--that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been
too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered
in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the
grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation;
I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I
have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been
to my affections what light, what color is to my eyes, what music
is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid
consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your joy and
sorrow more than for what is directly my own, has transformed the
spirit of rebellious murmuring into that willing endurance which is
the birth of strong sympathy. I think nothing but such complete and
intense love could have initiated me into that enlarged life which
grows and grows by appropriating the life of others; for before, I
was always dragged back from it by ever-present painful
self-consciousness. I even think sometimes that this gift of
transferred life which has come to me in loving you, may be a new
power to me.

"Then, dear one, in spite of all, you have been the blessing of my
life.

Philip Wakem, in "The Mill on the Floss".
It's best in context, of course. Perhaps rather overblown, but if this is for teenage girls...

And most anything of Mr. Rochester in "Jane Eyre" could be added to your list.

[AuntShecky]

How about this one from O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh:

"I picked up a nail from some tart in Altoona."

Oh, I kid, I kid.

For real, though, these opening lines from John Donne:

"I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did till we lov's? were we not wean'd till then?
But suck'd on countrey pleasures, childishly?"

[Rosie Cotton]

Sorry to inform you that your Mr. Darcy line is only from the movie. Maybe it shouldn't be included with the book quotes.

Thanks. I didn't put that one on the list. Someone else from the committee did, and I didn't bother to check them. But you are correct.

[kelby_lake]

'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.' (Maybe a bit inappropriate for the kiddies but ah well...)

"It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight." (Again, Lolita)

I'll think of some more later...