ENGLISH - Remember me - by Rossetti

• what does the title suggest?

  one word title suggests the poems simplistic style.

  refers to main quest of the speaker

  romantic poetry

  death and dying
• Rossetti context


  educated at home in london by parents

  family faced financial difficulty - due to death and dying due to fathers illness and mourned death of her husband

  mourning poetry - exacberated by high morality rates

  Rossetti enjoyed fame and popularity
• what is the structure of the poem?


  petrachan sonnet

  rhyme scheme = ABBAABBA CDD ECE - reflects hesistancy

  octave followed by a sestet

  octave - pleads with her lover to remember her after death

  sestet - selfless turn , if it causes pain then should try forget
• AO5 critical viewpoints 


  feminist views -

  passive role of women in victorian society

  'you tell me' speaker mentions her (pressumably male lover) patronising her, a future which her male lover planned, not one they dreamed of together

  man holds power over the female speaker

  reinforced patriarchal attitudes, legalising male dominance over women and stripping women of their autonomy
• 'remember me when i am gone, gone far away'


  adadiplosis (repetition of a phrase in a line) - speaker communicates of the distant unreachable place they are permanently headed - highlights permanent connection of death
• 'when you can no more hold me by the hand'


  speakers fear and uncertainty of their coming death - communicating a life in balance - speaker does not want to die and leave loved ones behind
• 'yet if you forget me for a while'


  speakers changes mind and allows love to forget her. change in view and feelings, a transition like death
• 'than that you should remember me and be sad'


  concludes on an accepting note - 'forget and smile rather than be sad' end of relationship painful for the speaker - final line assured in descion
• 'you tell me of our future that you plann'd'


  mentions a future that will never be realised. anguish and acceptance in the speakers voice. despite fear, the speaker is ready to let go and face death