Remember by Christina Rossetti (2nd year)

by Esraa Abo Al-soud Mon Apr 18, 2011 2:34 pm

Christina Rossetti, the poetess of Victorian England, wrote the sonnet "Remember“ in 1849, and published it first in "Goblin Market“ and Other Poems in 1862. In this short essay, I will first try to name sonnet‘s meter, analyse its rhyme and show how the rhyme relates to the content of the sonnet, indicate its theme or themes, and name some examples of figurative language used in sonnet.
"Remember“, without any dilemma, is sonnet with Italian form. It is written in iambic pentameter. It can be divided into two parts, an octave and a sestet. The octave has eight lines, and they rhyme (abbaabba). In this part of the sonnet, the question is raised, the theme is initialized and we get the insight of the leitmotif of the narrative. The rhythm achieved with the iambic pentameter and the rhyme leaves calm and unvaried impression. The reader is lulled into the storytelling of a dying woman, who is announcing her death.
And then comes the second part, sestet, the theme culminates and we evidence how the point is being made. The reader is awakened, because the monotonous rhythm is changed, which is achieved with the variation in the rhyming scheme. In sestet, the rhyme looks like (cddece). Looking only at the rhyme, we can say that the atmosphere in the sestet is different from the one we witnessed in the octave. But, what is the theme of the sonnet?
There can be found two themes in "Remember me when I am gone away“. They are actually the same theme, but they work on different perception levels. The first one is the balmy message of the narrator (the dying woman) to her lover, something like a guide for his behaviour after her death. She is reassuring him that, when it accidentally happens that he forgets her for a moment, it‘s not the end of the world, and that she wants him more to be happy than to be sorrowful. The second theme is on a meta-level, it‘s a message from author (or implied author) to the reader that, although we ache without the person that is gone "into the silent land“, it should not consume our lives, lives of those who are left living. Is only the change in rhyme scheme supporting the content and the meaning of the sonnet? Let us analyse the figurative language used in "Remember“.
First of all, we can notice that the choice of words is simple and that there are no visual details in these 14 lines. Christina Rossetti uses imperatives (remember me) three times in first eight lines. These occurrences of imperatives indicate the situations in which she expects that her lover will remember her. Not only that she expects that from him, but she formulates it in imperative to explicitly exemplify the extraordinary situations in which it would be justifiable, from her point of view, for him to remember her. In the second part of the sonnet, we have no more imperatives, but very temperate and cautious formulations (should remember, should forget). This also indicates the change of the mood. The author states that for her, although she contemplates possible objections, it would be better that her lover sometimes forget that she is gone and smiles, than to "remember and be sad“.
Christina Rossetti uses figurative language sparingly. There are three metaphors in the whole sonnet. The first metaphor is in verse 1, "Remember me when I am gone away“, where the words "gone away“ are used instead of "dead“. Having in mind only first line, we can‘t be sure is she just leaving him, going for a journey or is she dying. We might say that, in this sense, this metaphor, standing for itself, is ambiguous. No sooner than line 2, we realize that this metaphor works in above mentioned way. Actually, the second metaphor, situated in line 2, "Gone far away into the silent land“, gives us "silent land“ as tenor, and "eternal life“ as vehicle. Just keeping this in mind, we can say that metaphor 1 is really having "dead“ as vehicle. Third metaphor is in verse 11 "For if the darkness and corruption leave“, where "darkness and corruption leave“ is used as metaphor for his anger at her death.
This sonnet is obviously carefully planned. Both themes, on both levels, work perfectly together. They complement each other, while they make a complete idea of single destiny and general recommendation

Summary
Lines 1–2
The opening two lines of Rossetti’s sonnet “Remember” introduce the idea of separation, but whether the speaker’s eminent departure is because she has chosen to leave her lover or because she is dying is not immediately clear. As the poem unfolds, the reader understands that death will divide the couple, and the initial hint of that is the phrase “silent land” to describe the place the speaker is going. The words seem to define a cemetery or individual grave more than heaven, and “silent,” in particular, implies a dormant state—an existence and a place that are neither joyous nor painful, pleasant nor sad. The opening lines also portray the speaker’s desire to be remembered, and she requests her lover to do just that. This request will become more significant at the end of the poem when the dying woman appears to do an about-face with what she asks of him.
Lines 3–4
Line 3 simply furthers the idea of the couple’s time together coming to an end, describing their physical separation when death will remove her from his touch. Line 4, however, presents an interesting twist in the situation. If Rossetti is writing only about the sadness of a loving man and woman being torn apart by one’s actual death, then the woman—the one dying—would not have the option of turning “to go yet turning stay.” The implication here is that the death theme is not the only one at work. Caught between two opposites, going and staying, the speaker reveals her uncertainty in whether she really loves the man to whom she is speaking. Her unsure feelings become clearer in the latter part of the poem.
Lines 5–6
In line 5, the woman once again requests that her lover remember her “when no more day by day” he can talk to her about the future he was planning for the both of them. Notice here that the speaker says “our future that you planned,” implying that she may not have given as much thought to staying together for the rest of their lives as he had.
Lines 7–8
These are the last two lines of the “octave,” or a sonnet’s first eight lines that generally follow a specific rhyme scheme and present a question or dilemma to be resolved in the “sestet,” or final six lines. This poem’s resolution—if there is one—is not quite as satisfying or conclusive as most. Lines 7 and 8 present the third time the speaker uses the word “remember,” and it seems almost like a plea now. She essentially tells her lover that the only way to keep her with him is in his memory because, as her death approaches, it will be too late to discuss or pray about anything.
Lines 9–10
The beginning of the sestet is also the beginning of the about-face in the speaker’s instructions to her lover. For the first time, she uses the word “forget,” obviously the opposite of everything she has said to this point. Now she admits the possibility that the memory of her may slip from the man’s mind from time to time, and she tells him not to worry about this or “grieve” over it. Suddenly, she seems more realistic about their relationship and the likelihood that her lover will go on with his own life, not dwelling on the memory of a woman he once had and lost.
Lines 11–12
In these lines, the speaker explains why she has granted permission for her lover to forget her as well as remember her. The revelation here is further evidence that the woman has had doubts about her love for this man throughout their relationship. She acknowledges that her death will leave “darkness and corruption” in his life, and that in this state of grief, he may actually recall the bad as well as the good. That is, he may remember that the thoughts the woman once had were about leaving him, ending their relationship before death had the chance to end it. A “vestige,” or trace, of the doubt she sometimes felt would only bring him pain in remembering her after she is dead. With that in mind, the woman comes to the conclusion that she reveals in the final two lines of the sonnet.
Lines 13–14
Lines 13 and 14 present what feminist writer and critic Dolores Rosenblum calls an “equipoise,” or an equilibrium as a means of resolution. In Christina Rossetti: The Poetry of Endurance, Rosenblum states:
the young poet has already grasped the possibilities of the valediction of holding opposites in balance, for keeping and letting go. . . . If opposites cannot be reconciled, if self-division cannot be healed, then at least one can imagine the perfect equipoise.
The decision, or balance, in “Remember” is that it is better for the man to forget his dead lover if remembering her will only bring him pain. Keep in mind that it is not the normal pain that comes along with grieving for a lost loved one that the speaker wants him to avoid. Rather, it is the pain of remembering that she may not have really loved him, and their relationship would not have been a lifelong one even if she had lived into old age.

Themes
Imperfect Love
The theme of imperfect love in Rossetti’s “Remember” is an idea based on the more obvious and often used theme of religion in her work. To a poet so devoutly centered on her Christian faith and love of God, the love of a man must seem second-rate, at best. A question, therefore, arises about her sincerity in the relationship she has with her lover— on one hand, she seems honestly to love him and begs him to remember her when she is dead; on the other hand, she appears a bit nonchalant in her willingness to tell him to forget her just the same.
In the beginning of the poem, the love between the couple seems strong, and the overtone of sadness and grief stems from the notion that death is about to tear them apart. But is this notion a fact? Is the woman really dying and, if so, how much time does she have left—a few hours, a few weeks, a year? There is no indication of a time limit, nor is there any reference to what she is dying from. All the reader knows is that the speaker is urgent in her message, and her message is based on love. But the last line of the octave, line 8, implies a higher love than the secular one shared by man and woman. Here, the speaker seems to tell her lover that once she is with God, he may as well not bother seeking help or praying because she will be far beyond his feeble and imperfect love. Only God’s love is perfect.
In the latter part of the poem, the woman relinquishes her lover from his duty to remember her, acknowledging that, still on earth, he will encounter the “darkness and corruption” that befalls human beings on a regular basis. Feeling sorry for him, she frees him from any painful memories of her, particularly the recollections of how his love could never measure up to her expectations. In light of her strict faith, it would seem that no mortal man’s ever could.
Balance and Contradiction
“Remember” is an exercise in opposites—a poem made up of a back-and-forth shift between balance and contradiction. This theme echoes Rossetti’s own life, which often found her pulled between two poles, usually in regard to religion and worldly passion. This tension is reflected in the sonnet in both the speaker’s indecision on whether to “turn to go” or “turning stay” and in her initial request to be remembered and her final request to be forgotten.
In her book, Christina Rossetti Revisited, critic Sharon Smulders says this of “Remember”: “Poised between going and staying, between life and death, the speaker inhabits a subject position that is rife with indeterminacy.” And in an article for Victorian Poetry, critic Thom Dombrowski notes that in Rossetti’s religious poems in general “the torment is especially intense because the speaker . . . seems torn between longing and loathing, hope and despair, resolution and weariness.” The contradicting emotions and pull in opposite directions essentially pave the way for the balance that Rossetti provides at the end of the poem. Although the speaker appears unsure of whether to go or stay, in the end she has no choice. If her death is real, then she must leave her lover behind. But the conflict does not end there. Instead, the man’s memory of her will carry on the duality she posed to him when she was alive. Will it be a good memory or a bad memory? The speaker’s answer does not actually resolve the problem, but, rather provides an “out” for either result: if the memory is good, remember her; if it is bad, forget her.

Style
The Sonnet
In Victorian England and centuries prior, writing poetry meant writing with formality, adhering to a specific line length, rhyme scheme, meter, and so forth. The sonnet is one of the most popular styles of formal verse, and there are two main types of sonnets—the Shakespearean (English) and the Petrarchan (Italian). In its structure, “Remember” most closely follows the Petrarchan style, named for the Italian poet Petrarch Francesco (1307–1374) who made it popular. This type of sonnet contains fourteen lines, divided into an octave (the first eight lines) and a sestet (the last six lines). Usually, the octave acts as a kind of rising action, presenting a question, vision, or desire that becomes the subject of the poem. The sestet is typically the resolution section, providing an answer to the question, bringing the vision into full view, or satisfying the desire expressed in the octave. A Petrarchan sonnet generally follows the rhyme scheme a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a for the first eight lines and c-d-e-c-d-e for the final six.
Rosetti’s “Remember” follows precisely the Petrarchan rhyme scheme for the octave, but offers a slight variation in the sestet, which rhymes c-dd- e-c-e. One cannot be certain why the poet strayed from the usual form, and perhaps it was simply because she liked the sound of it better this way. Some speculation has also suggested that rhyming lines 12 and 14 gives greater emphasis to the poem’s ending, in which the speaker’s final decision is revealed. As far as the use of the octave and sestet to present typical Petrarchan dilemma and resolution is concerned, this sonnet also runs off course, especially in the sestet. Rather than expanding on the idea of remembrance presented in the octave or bringing a satisfying closure to the speaker’s assumed last request, the final lines in “Remember” speak of even grimmer “darkness and corruption” and jump from remembering to forgetting. As such, Rossetti’s poem shows mastery of the formal style, but also demonstrates how slight deviations can provide greater impact for the work.

What is the theme on which the poem "Remember," by Christina Rossetti, is based?
“Remember” is an elegiac poem, focusing on the themes of death, remembrance, relinquishment, and forgiveness. The speaker is Rossetti pondering her impending death and releasing her lover from the responsibility of enshrining her in his memory because she fears it will cause him pain. She tells him that if he chooses to forget her, he should not feel guilty.

What are the moral lessons of the poem "Remember"?
The moral lesson is forgiveness and, as the title says, remembering. The speaker asks to be remembered after her death, when physical contact is no longer possible; when decisions can no longer be made then undone; she reminds the beloved that there will be no more future to plan, no more dreams to dream. After the physical death, there is no purpose in counseling or prayer to make things better between them.
The speaker also knows that in time, the beloved will probably occasionally forget about her, but that it is normal to do so; when he recalls that she has for a time slipped from his memory, she urges him to not feel guilty about the lapse.
Finally, after death, their problems, small and large, no longer exist or have any relevancy. Since this is the case, the speaker wants the lover to forget those troubled times and smile. When he does once again remember her after those forgetful periods, she hopes that instead of the dark times, he will only bring to mind the happy ones.

What is the setting of the poem "Remember" by Chrisitina Rossetti?
The poem, "Remember" by Christina Rossetti, is set as the narrator is in the process of passing on or possible the poem is spoken as a missive from the afterlife. Clearly the narrator is not expecting a response from the receiver of the spoken words. The author has left no indication that this is meant to be a conversation. So one can only assume since the majority of the poem is giving instructions as to how the narrator wants to be remembered after s/he passes, that it is either a deathbed declaration or a missive from the afterlife. I can envision the departing soul murmuring these words as it hovers over those gathered around the bed of the dying person.

Why is "Remember" a sonnet?
It is a sonnet because, as with all sonnets (except the Shakespearian sonnet) it has 14 lines, a rhyming scheme which is consistent, and the composition is an iambic pentameter. What basically gives it away is the rhyming scheme.
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