Between all the crying and fist-biting and weeping and wailing, it's easy to overlook how "The Broken Heart" is also a poem about awe and amazement. Still, once you get past how bummed out the speaker is, there's an undeniable kind of admiration present in the way he describes love's power to just totally wreck a human life. Nothing, it seems, can match love's destructive power—at least in our speaker's eyes. There's definitely a twinge of awe in the way he looks at love's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad influence.
Questions About Awe and Amazement
- Why is love so uniquely powerful, according to the speaker?
- How does the speaker communicate his sense of awe about love's tremendous influence in his life?
- Do you think the speaker admires love at any point during the poem? How can you tell?
- Do you share the speaker's view of love's terrible powers? Why or why not?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
This poem is more about the speaker's admiration for love's power than it is a lament for his own situation.
The speaker really isn't in awe of love. He's just really, really…really depressed.