remember - christina rossetti

form and main devices? (2 points)

• italian sonnet

• imperatives and exclaimatives

‘remember me when i am gone away’ - meanings and devices? (2 points)

• first person, addresses lover in gentle tones

• ‘remember’ repetition - implies fear that they won’t

‘gone far away / gone far away into the silent land’ - meanings and devices? (3 points)

• ‘gone away’ repetition - boundary between life and death

• ‘the silent land’ symbolises death, loneliness

• accepting death is a theme for pre-raphaelites

‘when you can no more hold me by the hand’ - meanings? (3 points)

• death euphemism - keeps gentle tone

• ‘hand’ refers to marriage - religious themes

• soft ‘H’ - alliteration, simple yet desperate

‘nor i half turn to go yet turning stay’ - meanings? (refer to historical context)

reluctance to die - life was fragile in victorian times, lack of meds

importance of the phrase ‘remember me’? (2 points)

• repeated as a refrain

• in the last line ‘me’ is omitted - personal connection is lost

‘…day by day’ - meanings?

shows the lover’s endurance living on without his wife

interpretations of - when no more…/ you tell me of our future that you planned/ only remember me; you understand’ (2 points)

1. the lover’s plans were forced on her - however, rossetti was very independent in her life

2. that she is asking to be remembered as herself and not for her death

significance of ‘only remember me; you understand’ ? (3 points)

• end of the first 8 lines (octet)

• semicolon symbolises distance between the dead and living

• ‘only’ tells the lover to only acknowledge happy memories

‘it will be late to counsel then or pray’ what does this imply?

spiritual connection between the speaker and listener

‘yet if you should forget me for a while’- significance and meanings? (2 points)

• last 6 lines (sestet) - reconciling with death

• volta - change of mood, shown through internal rhymes ‘yet’ and ‘forget’

‘for if the darkness and corruption leave’ - meanings? (2 points)

• comments on the grief and burden people face in life

• ‘corruption’ refers to decomposition of dead bodies

‘better by far you should forget and smile / than that you should remember and be sad’ - technique and meanings? (2 points)

• ‘better by far’ - hyperbaton. shows importance

• ends the poem in peace and acceptance of fate