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Remember - CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
Summary
“Remember” is a Petrarchan sonnet.
The speaker addresses her beloved and encourages him to remember her after her death. She
asks him to remember her even when his memory of her begins to fade. Eventually, the
speaker gives this person her permission to forget her gradually because it is better to "forget
and smile" than to "remember and be sad."
The octave
The speaker reminds her beloved that when she is gone into the silent land of death, he will
no longer hold her hand; he will no longer plan or speak of their future life together
(seemingly her illness has prevented them from marrying); he will no longer be able to
comfort and counsel her and pray for her. Her request of him is that, with all this that they will
lose, he remember her. The theme is being remembered after death. The speaker is self-
centred: she is thinking only about herself.
The sestet
The narrator’s tone changes in the sestet. The narrator even renounces the need to be
remembered, which is ironic because the poem is titled “Remember.” She wishes for her
beloved to be happy, even if that means forgetting her. The narrator sacrifices her personal
desire in an expression of true love.
Repetition
Rossetti repeats the word “remember” throughout the entire poem, as if the narrator fears
that her beloved will not heed her request.
She also uses repetition to emphasise the vast boundary between life and death, writing
“gone away,” and later, “gone far away.”
Line 1
Remember me – commanding tone
when I am gone away – euphemism for death. She tries to soften the impact that she will be
gone forever. This emphasizes the narrator's loneliness without her beloved rather, which is
stronger than her fear of death itself.
Line 2
Gone far away – she will not be able to return. Sense of finality.
far – emphasises distance between them
into the silent land - In Christianity, the phrase is a symbol for and an implied metaphor for
death: going into the silent land is going into the land of death. After she dies, she will no
longer be able to communicate with her beloved. Thus, the afterlife will be a "silent land".
the - conveys a sense of certainty, no doubt that she is about to die.
Silent – can mean peacefulness (Heaven). She will be at peace because she will no longer
suffer any pain.
