Poetry: Remember

Remember by Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away, 

         Gone far away into the silent land; 

         When you can no more hold me by the hand, 

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. 

Remember me when no more day by day 

         You tell me of our future that you plann'd: 

         Only remember me; you understand 

It will be late to counsel then or pray. 

Yet if you should forget me for a while 

         And afterwards remember, do not grieve: 

         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.

Meaning...

There are two main possible interpretations of this poem, firstly that it refers to divine love and the speaker is rejecting a lover because they must be true to God. The second, and the one which I see as most likely, is that the poem is discussing death, either from the perspective of Rossetti's father who was very ill at the time that this poem was written or imagining that the speaker is the person facing death.

Language...

1) Divine love acting as a barrier

• Semantic field of religion, heaven and hell e.g. "pray", "silent land" (pilgrimage? Nun?), "darkness and corruption" (hell?).
• 10 syllables per line may be a reflection of the 10 commandments from the bible.

2) Love before imminent death

• Semantic field of death e.g."silent land", "grieve", "darkness", "vestige".
• Tone of inevitability and finality e.g. the anadiplosis "gone away/ Gone far away".

Both

• Caesura in the middle of the poem ("Only remember me; you understand") breaks the sentence which is mimetic of the parting of the two people. This is further emphasised by the fact that words either side of the semi-colon are "me" and "you".
• Repetition of "remember" throughout indicates that memory will be the only consistency left between the two people.
• Semantic field of time suggests that the parting is inevitable.

Context...

1) Divine love acting as a barrier

• Rossetti turned down two suitors due to religious incompatibility.
• Others of her poems e.g. "A Birthday" present the rejection of a man in preference of divine love.
• Her sister, Maria, became a nun and Christina worked closely with the sisterhood.

2) Love before imminent death

• The poem was written in 1849 and at the time Rossetti's father was gravely ill, dying n 1854.

Links to other texts...

Gatsby: Clear family love links to the absence of this in Gatsby e.g. with Daisy and her daughter; emphasis on religion contrasts with the lack of this in Gatsby, characterised by T J Eckleburg's eyes.

Poetry: Presents religion as a barrier to romantic love like in The Flea and The Garden of Love; similar divine love shown in Sonnet 116; sense of loss and parting presented in Ae Fond Kiss.

Criticism....

Biographical: The Rossetti family were very religious so she is likely to have been influenced by this/ her father's illness is likely to have influenced her perspective on death.