Remember by Christina Rossetti (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes

Remember by Christina Rossetti

Overview

In this poem, a dying speaker addresses their beloved, imploring them to keep their memory alive after death. Written as a sorrowful farewell, the poem explores the speaker's hopes and fears as they contemplate their impending separation. Remember is a classic Victorian sonnet that examines themes of love, loss, memory and mortality through its carefully crafted structure and language.

Synopsis

The poem presents an unnamed speaker who is fast approaching death and directly addresses their beloved, asking to be remembered after they pass away. Written from the perspective of someone about to be mourned, the poem shows the speaker repeatedly begging their lover to remember them and wishing them lasting happiness and joy. However, as the poem progresses, there is a significant shift in the speaker's request, revealing a profound love that ultimately prioritises the beloved's contentment over the speaker's own desire to be remembered.

Context

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Christina Rossetti grew up in London, educated at home by her parents alongside her influential brother, the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Her father was both a poet and scholar of Italian literature, introducing the Rossetti children to the works of great Italian poets such as Petrarch and Dante. This early exposure likely influenced Rossetti's preference for the Petrarchan poetic form, which she uses in Remember.

The family experienced prolonged financial hardship, primarily due to her father's poor health, which forced the children to work from a young age. Despite also facing her own health challenges, Rossetti pursued poetry from a young age, writing Remember when she was just 19 years old in 1842. The poem was later published in Rossetti's first collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems.

Unlike many classic poets, Rossetti enjoyed fame and recognition during her lifetime, influenced by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Romantic poets like Keats. Romantic poetry frequently referenced themes of death and dying, as exemplified in Remember.

Rossetti was deeply religious and allegedly never married due to her devotion to her faith. She suffered a mental breakdown at age 14, which may have influenced the contemplative and melancholic tone often found in her work.

Poetic form

Remember is written as a sonnet, which explores the relationship between two lovers as one faces impending death. The poem portrays the final message and request of a dying narrator to their loved one. The exact relationship between the narrator and the addressee is not explicitly stated, though the poem is presumably written for a lover, as suggested by the use of intimate language throughout. The narrator speaks with a sense of balance and control, though there is also a palpable tone of finality and fear. The lovers' relationship is further revealed through the poetic devices employed, indicating deep love whilst communicating a profound sense of sorrow at the speaker's death and the subsequent end of their relationship.

The title: Remember

Analysis of the poem

The poem begins with a seemingly simple request as the speaker addresses their lover with direct, straightforward language: Remember me when I am gone away. The repetition of the central request, remember, indicates both the speaker's hope for everlasting love and conveys the finality of the poem's message. The speaker will likely not be seen or heard from again. This repetition also suggests the speaker's fear and uncertainty at their coming death, communicating a life very much in balance. The speaker does not want to die and leave their beloved behind.

The phrase gone away introduces anadiplosis (the repetition of a phrase in successive lines). The speaker will be gone away, gone far away, at the start of the next line. This emphasises the distant, unreachable place they are permanently headed, highlighting the permanent disconnection of death.

The speaker mentions going into the silent land, with Rossetti utilising euphemism to describe death or the afterlife. This is likely in keeping with Rossetti's religious beliefs, whilst also reflecting her personal struggles with illness. The metaphor of a silent land conveys the inability to communicate after death, describing death by what is no more: a loving companionship built on care and support has given way to a morose, bleak tone.

When you can no more hold me by the hand reinforces the physical intimacy between the lovers and the supportive influence of love. The speaker's life and their love is a source of joy and comfort. This alliteration of soft, fricative /h/ and /f/ sounds lends the poem a gentle, songlike quality, conjuring images of intimacy, touch and affection through the action of holding and attempting to leave.

The hesitation conveyed in line 4, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay, suggests the speaker's fear and uncertainty at their coming death. The speaker does not want to die and leave their beloved, mentioning a future that will never be realised, a vanished life not yet accepted in the speaker's voice. Despite this fear, the speaker appears ready to let their lover go and face death.

A strong defeatist tone and sad resignation to the imminent future pervades these lines. The speaker is powerless in the face of inevitable death. However, in line 5, the speaker changes their mind, allowing their lover to forget, offering a change of view and feeling that resembles a transition similar to death itself. There is enjambment between lines 5 and 6, as well as 7 and 8, reflecting the poem's contemplative, flowing nature.

The poem concludes on an accepting note, expressing a wish to forget and smile rather than remember and be sad. The end of the relationship is painful for the speaker; however, in the final lines, they appear certain and assured in their decision. This ending reads like a final farewell between lovers.

The strict iambic pentameter structure further reflects the speaker's strained speech and controlled emotion. The speaker stoically attempts self-control, with no line break (caesura) or enjambment in the first six lines, as the poem strictly follows the Petrarchan sonnet form.

There is a direct address throughout, creating the sense of an intimate parting letter clearly intended for a loved one. The repetition of you, I and we/us markedly absents, suggesting the permanent end of the relationship. Love and care are conveyed in the command do not grieve; the narrator wants their lover to be happy, not wallowing in sadness at their loss.

Perspective

Remember explores themes of love, death and remembrance, portraying a speaker's hope for an enduring, everlasting love and their final request to be remembered. The poem is written from the perspective of the dying person, who begins by imploring their beloved to always remember them. Little is known about the speaker or their lover; however, the level of intimacy and deep love is made apparent through Rossetti's use of language.

The speaker repeatedly begs their lover to remember them at the beginning of the sonnet. However, there is a significant change in the speaker's request in the middle section, lending the poem a degree of sad realism and verisimilitude whilst ensuring it does not become overly sentimental. The speaker eventually allows their beloved to forget them, and this permission to forget represents a different, noteworthy development. By the poem's conclusion, it no longer matters to the speaker whether their lover remembers them; what matters most is that they go on to live a joyful life.

The speaker decides that a permanent, lasting influence on their lover is more important than an attempt at continued remembering. In fact, the speaker accepts and acknowledges that their beloved may forget them despite a concerted effort not to, and instead expresses a wish that their love may survive in other ways. Ultimately, the speaker feels it is better for their lover to forget them and be content than to remember them if that memory brings unhappiness.

Therefore, one of the key ideas presented is that individuals can have deep and lasting influence on each other, despite being forgotten or perhaps even long after they may have been forgotten.

There is a curious, unique strength in the speaker's readiness to concede and accept that they may be forgotten by their lover despite their pleas. There is also a level of frank selflessness, putting their lover's happiness above their own wishes, thereby displaying a profound, unselfish love. By exploring the speaker's perspectives, Rossetti tackles the complexities of love, grief and death, in addition to the associated complicated emotions.

Themes

Love

In Remember, the speaker's deep love for their beloved causes a marked change in their request. They ask their lover to remember them; however, they later grant permission to forget. This demonstrates the hope that their love and relationship has had some profound influence on the lover left behind. This speaks to the kind of enduring love the poem aims to communicate. What is of utmost importance, at least to the narrator, is their surviving lover's long-term happiness, which takes precedence over whether they remember the speaker after death.

The various push-pull forces of love are depicted in Remember through the way the speaker changes their mind and adjusts their request to remember. This further indicates an underlying fear and hesitancy, shown in the line half turn to go yet turning stay. Ideally, the speaker wishes for an everlasting love, a future with their beloved like they had plann'd. However, with this unlikely to happen, they do not want their death to cause their beloved needless pain and distress.

In this way, the transformative power of love is conveyed through the speaker's amendment of their requests. Here, Remember presents an alternative view of love, suggesting what truly matters is the ability to be a subtle yet constant presence in another's life, in the way the speaker hopes by the end of the poem. The narrator imagines their lover momentarily forgetting them for a while, yet portrays the hope that they remain a permanent part of their lover's life, whether by strong influence or lasting memory, ultimately overcoming death.

Over the course of the sonnet, the speaker reconsiders their request and, by extension, their understanding of their love and devotion to their beloved. Ultimately, the hope of the speaker permanently influencing their lover and remaining forever a part of them is what spurs and motivates this reconsideration. The speaker believes and dreams that they can become a subtle positive presence, as opposed to a painfully remembered absence. They also do not wish any suffering on their beloved after they die. In this way, the speaker in Remember redefines what it means to love, as well as to grieve, mourn and remember. This is an alternative presentation of love, one that remains present and constant in other ways, not only through the act of remembering. As such, love is presented as a powerful force that can live on after death. These various manifestations and interpretations of love are conveyed throughout Remember as the speaker understands their beloved's ultimate contentment may cause them some pain.

By the sonnet's final lines, it becomes clear that the speaker's love for their beloved greatly overpowers their initial desire to remain in their memory eternally. To the speaker, this is a clear expression of their true love, representing a different way of demonstrating romantic love.

Memory and death

In Remember, the themes of memory and death are closely intertwined. The first lines of the poem signify how the speaker's death puts an end to life as the lovers know it, with memory becoming the only place where traces of their relationship will remain. It is understandable then why the speaker urges and begs their lover to remember, for precious shared memories will soon be all they have left. The repetition of the word remember throughout the sonnet highlights this prominent theme of memory.

As with the theme of love, Remember interrogates conventional views of remembrance, mourning and grief, questioning what it means to die if one can still live on in another's mind. Rossetti explores this notion using a range of poetic devices as she presents the speaker's complicated thoughts and feelings.

Remember not only portrays the theme of death but also conveys meta emotions relating to death, expressing the speaker's feelings towards their own imminent death and the fear and sorrow at this prospect. It could be argued that the speaker in Remember is fearful, not of death itself, but of being forgotten in time by their lover. The speaker's tone changes through the poem, faltering between contemplative as they comprehend their coming death, anxious at the notion of being forgotten by their beloved, and ultimately assured in their love and its power to outlast even death.

This would align with Pre-Raphaelite philosophical beliefs, which readily accepted death and believed in predestination. The speaker is unyielding and adamant that they be remembered. Rossetti uses this to explore whether one can live on following death if they are remembered, and fundamentally whether death can be overcome in this way. The speaker bravely accepts their death, as well as the notion of existing only in their beloved's memory. Therefore, the idea of being forgotten by their beloved is a greater, more frightening form of death to the speaker than any physical death—the former a notion the speaker fears greatly and struggles to accept.

Rossetti employs poetic devices to convey the speaker's slow realisation and acceptance of potentially being forgotten. One such device is the repetition of the phrase remember me. The power of this plea appears to diminish as it is repeated, almost as though the speaker's strength is slowly dissipating. This could serve as a reflection of the speaker dying as well as their eventual acceptance of being forgotten. Initially, remember me begins the lines in which it appears; however, in line 7, it is preceded by only, expressing this loss of strength and willpower. Eventually, me is lost altogether, with the speaker urging their beloved only to remember, losing its personal, direct connection with the speaker. This is flanked on either side by clauses stating and afterwards and better...you. This could also be interpreted as the speaker giving up hope their beloved will remember them and settling on an alternative request.

The narrator imagines their death as a journey to a remote silent land, a country from which there is no return, invoking the worlds of the living and the dead. This silent land is a separate, isolated world where the lovers can no longer contact each other, communicating only through memory and thought. There, the lovers can no longer hold each other by the hand or share intimacy—a silent land with no hope for a future. There is a stark contrast between the narrator's understanding of death and many religious interpretations, where the dead are envisaged as forever watching over their loved ones. However, Remember presents an interpretation of death where the dead are forever disconnected from the living and their loved ones. This not only explains the poem's overly bleak tone but also provides explanation as to why remembrance holds so much weight in the speaker's mind. Remembering is so important because of the totally isolating forces of the silent land, which threaten to forever keep the lovers apart.

The speaker believes death to be a distant place where they are permanently separated from the living and their loved ones. This is conveyed through the phrase gone away / gone far away, which reinforces the distance between the lovers as well as emphasising the boundary between life and death. Furthermore, there is no mention of being able to counsel then or pray after death, again reinforcing the finality of death and expressing regret that their beloved will have to navigate the burden of their loss alone. Therefore, to the speaker, it is of paramount importance that following their passing, they permanently remain with their lover as a vestige of the thoughts that once they [I] had—an encompassing, influential strong presence, perhaps without their beloved's knowledge, but still alive in the beloved's mind.

Death is another prominent theme in Remember. The darkness and corruption that threatens the speaker and their beloved could allude to the darkness of the grave or afterlife and the physical decay of their earthly remains, or corruption of the body. Alternatively, it could be a reference to the beloved's emotional state of grief and the darkness of mourning. The speaker hopes that despite this darkness and corruption, some vestige or small remnant of their being remains forever in their lover's mind. In this way, death can be overcome as the dead can outlive death, be kept alive or be restored to life through memory. The speaker believes this vestige will allow them to live on after their beloved has mourned their death, depicting this struggle against permanent expiration and the notion of eternal life through memory.

Structure

Petrarchan style and rhyme scheme

Remember is written in a special form known as the Petrarchan sonnet, with a specific rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA CDD ECE. This sonnet form is traditionally associated with love poems and is named after Petrarch, a 16th-century Italian poet who invented and pioneered the form.

Petrarchan poems are composed of an octave (or octet) of eight lines, followed by a sestet of six lines, to complete the 14-line sonnet. They also contain a volta, or turn, between the eighth and ninth lines, about halfway through the poem. This volta is used to indicate the point where the octave ends and the sestet starts. Generally, the octave is utilised by poets to present a dilemma or viewpoint, and often the following sestet offers a solution or alternative viewpoint.

Rossetti strictly adheres to the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, using the Petrarchan style to mirror the changing thoughts and feelings of the speaker, effectively portraying this internal back and forth.

In the octave, the speaker continuously pleads with their lover to remember them after death, whilst the sestet has a noticeable change. In the poem's sestet, the final six lines, Rossetti employs a different rhyme scheme just as the speaker's request takes a different direction. The speaker's request takes a more selfless turn, recognising that if remembering causes their lover pain, the speaker would rather their beloved forget. Here, the volta is used to portray this shift in thought and emotion, creating a smooth transition in the speaker's pleas as the sonnet moves from the octave to sestet. The volta is therefore a pivotal moment in Remember, one of change, marking the speaker's realisation that remembrance could cause pain, followed by the subsequent alterations in their requests.

Meter

Remember is written in iambic pentameter, the most common type of meter in English poetry. Each line is composed of five iambs, creating a metrical foot that is arguably similar to a heartbeat. This is therefore appropriate to the contents of the love poem Remember. Rossetti writes in strict iambic pentameter, creating a strained feel to the speaker's words as they tentatively address their lover. It also suggests a level of restraint; perhaps the speaker withholds some of their words as they attempt to discuss the difficult situation, or perhaps the speaker struggles to correctly express their feelings. Following the metre strictly could therefore have been important to Rossetti as a tool to convey the speaker's complicated emotions.

Rhyme scheme

Remember is a Petrarchan sonnet and therefore has the specific rhyme scheme of ABBA ABBA CDD ECE. Rossetti uses this unique rhyme scheme to mirror the speaker's train of thought. The balanced, standard ABBA rhyme scheme used in the octave is a reflection of the speaker's measured, composed speech as they begin the sonnet with their requests to be remembered. However, in the octave, Rossetti uses the more complicated rhyme scheme in the sestet to perfectly reflect the speaker's complicated feelings. Here, the rhyme scheme changes from relatively simple and regular to more complex, much like the speaker's feelings.

This creates a sense of life, then death, and then perhaps, as the speaker hopes, life again. It could also be interpreted as signifying the cycle of life and death, suggesting that if the speaker's beloved forgets them, they will be in all senses totally dead. The use of the rhyme scheme could indicate this and serves as another example of Rossetti using both form and content to convey ideas in her poetry.

Language

Opening and address

The poem opens with the speaker's coming death and the subsequent separation of the couple. During the octave, the speaker addresses their lover, imploring them to remember and cherish their shared memories. The poem begins with the immediate introduction of one of the central themes: death. The speaker pleads with their beloved to remember them after they have gone far away into the silent land. The poem is directly addressed to their lover; the octave is a call to remember, which the speaker then clarifies in the following sestet.

Direct address

The poem Remember itself is a direct address and reads very much like an intimate parting letter to someone the speaker feels very closely connected to. Rossetti uses personal pronouns such as you, us and me throughout, creating the sense of a private farewell.

Poetic style and devices

Remember is written in a plain and simple voice, conveying the speaker pleading to their love with a level of intimate simplicity and tenderness. The final lines of the poem are especially compelling due to the frankness and directness of the speaker's speech. Additionally, the simple language is juxtaposed with the precise, intricate structure, meter and rhyme scheme employed by Rossetti.

There is also some ambiguity in Remember. In line 7, the speaker pleads only remember me, and it could be that the speaker's only wish is for their lover to remember, or that they want them to remember only them and no one else—a subtle addition through which Rossetti invites interpretation.

Alliteration

Rossetti utilises alliteration to further portray the tenderness between lovers. It could also be argued the alliteration of /h/ in lines 3 and 4, hold me by the hand / half turn, reflects the desperate, almost panting pleading of the speaker as they address their beloved, adding to the sense of urgency. The plosive alliteration of better by also conveys the intensity of the speaker's emotions and their pressing need to be remembered.

Euphemism

The speaker mentions a silent land, with Rossetti utilising a euphemism to describe death. This communicates the distance between the lovers and avoids explicitly using the word death, perhaps in an effort not to distress the speaker's beloved. This metaphor likens death to a journey between the worlds of the dead and the living, to a barren silent land from where no contact is made. The speaker's love will survive only in memory.

Caesura

There is caesura between lines 7 and 8, where the semicolon separates me and you, arguably representing the distance between the living and the dead.

Repetition

The phrase remember me is repeated throughout the poem, used imperatively in the first three instances in the octet as a command from the speaker to their beloved. In lines 1 and 5, remember me opens each verse, adding strength and weight to the speaker's command. In line 7, however, remember me appears after only, softening the authoritative tone. Finally, in the sestet, remember is part of a conditional statement, an option: should remember, should the beloved forget. This mirrors the speaker's process of accepting that their lover may forget them, momentarily acknowledging this possibility.

Comparisons

Remember and La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Similarities:

• Common theme of death and weakness. Both poems conjure images of the dying process through repetition of words like pale, death pale, starved lips in Keats, similar to the dying speaker in Remember
• Similar context: Keats wrote the poem after his brother's death from tuberculosis
• Another common theme is memory. The lady in La Belle Dame Sans Merci lingers in the memory and dreams of the speaker
• The ballad poem explores death and memory through a display of obsessive love

Differences:

• Structure differs. The last line of each verse in Keats is the shortest, creating a sense of unfulfillment and unease
• La Belle Dame sans Merci contains themes of obsession and an infatuation that alters the speaker's understanding of reality, even visiting them in their dreams. Remember is written in a far more grounded and balanced voice

Remember and To His Coy Mistress

Similarities:

• Both poems invoke religious imagery. Remember uses the metaphor of silent land, whilst To His Coy Mistress references I would love you 10 years before the flood and the conversion of the Jews, showing biblical references in both love poems
• Both poems have a prominent theme of death. The speaker in To His Coy Mistress urges his mistress to act quickly before worms [shall] try her [thy] long preserved virginity. The poem also alludes to the grave and a marble vault where the mistress's beauty shall nor more be found and where none embrace, much like the silent land in Remember
• The speaker in To His Coy Mistress creates a sense of urgency similar to the narrator in Remember, both pleading to their loved ones before death
• In To His Coy Mistress, death is personified as an inevitable, powerful force that will turn the mistress to quaint honour to dust and into ashes

Differences:

• Structure of To His Coy Mistress: first flattery, then threat, then urgency. Remember presents a plea to remember with two distinct verses, further supported by rhyme scheme and Petrarchan structure
• In Remember, death is fast approaching and will break apart a loving couple

Remember and Whoso List to Hunt

Remember and Sonnet 116

Both Remember and Sonnet 116 allude to the theme of enduring love, love which transcends and overcomes time and death. In Sonnet 116, love is described as an ever fix'd mark that permanently changes people. Love is not love which alters when it alterations find—here the speaker argues that love is not only permanent but also a force that can overcome death and time. This personification of love is not defeated by love; love's not time's fool and alters not with his brief hours and weeks. Furthermore, Shakespeare also alludes to death using apocalyptic imagery of a sickle's compass, but the speaker remains confident in love's power and ability to bear[s] it out even to the edge of doom.

Critical perspectives

Feminist interpretation

Such an interpretation reflected the conventional attitudes of gender roles at the time, where male dominance was the norm and further supported by law. Specifically, the legal concept of coverture, common law in England during this era, outlined that a woman's property, rights and obligations belonged to her husband. This reinforced patriarchal attitudes, legalising male dominance over women and stripping women of their autonomy.

Remember!