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Summary ‘Remember’ by Christina Rosetti
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1‘Remember’ by Christina Rosetti
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand, Born in 1830 in
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. London, Christina
Remember me when no more day by day 5 Rossetti, the
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
author of Goblin
Only remember me; you understand
Market and Other
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while Poems, is a major
And afterwards remember, do not grieve: 10 Victorian Poet.
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad. 14
Themes Christina Rossetti's “Remember” is a poem about
grief, told not from the perspective of a mourner
• Death - the dying poetic speaker is preparing herself and her but rather the person who's to be mourned. In this
beloved for what is to come. She has been fighting to recover sonnet, the speaker begs a loved one to remember
and renew her strength to stay alive. She foresees the time her after her death—but also not to feel guilty if he
when her effort will fail and wants her beloved to be prepared, forgets her, so long as she's made some permanent
"you understand," for her death. mark on his life and he remains happy. The
• Mortality and immortality - The speaker faces her mortality by speaker's poignant realism (in the sense of
accepting the pull of death "into the silent land." accepting that her beloved may in fact forget
• Loss or grief and mourning and how best to cope with it. about her) engages both with the finality of death
• The poem is about the importance of remembering, and the and the persistence of love. Rosetti wrote the poem
importance of letting go of memories can cause pain in 1849 at the age of 19, though it was first published
in 1862 in her collection Goblin Market and Other
Poems.
, 2
Remember me when I am gone away,
In “Remember,” a speaker entreats a loved one to Gone far away into the silent land;
remember her after her death. At the same time, When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
however, the speaker insists that her beloved shouldn’t Remember me when no more day by day 5
feel bad about it if he forgets her for a little while: so long You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
as she’s had some permanent influence on him, it’s It will be late to counsel then or pray.
ultimately better for him to forget about her and be Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve: 10
happy than to remember her and be sad. The poem For if the darkness and corruption leave
thus explores the poignant push-pull of grief: while the A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
speaker wishes to remain forever with her love in some Than that you should remember and be sad. 14
way, she also doesn’t want her absence to cause him
pain. In the end, the poem suggests that what truly
matters to her is that she shape her beloved, becoming
a part of him through her influence on his life—and in
doing so, become a subtle presence rather than a
constantly remembered absence.
TONE
• melancholy (quiet, contemplative sadness)
• nostalgic
• hopeful
• conciliatory
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