Christina Rossetti Remember

When the sonnet “Remember” first appeared in “Goblin Market” and Other Poems in 1862, it was both warmly and sadly received by readers. A mixture of happiness and depression tends to run throughout many of Christina Rossetti’s poems, and this one, which begins “Remember me when I am gone away,” implies immediately a loving, yet sad, request. How Rossetti resolves the conflict she presents in the poem reflects the way she handled similar dilemmas in her own life—emotionally and philosophically, always letting her devout Christian beliefs be the deciding factor.

Whether it was her struggle with debilitating illnesses or a desire to meet her maker, Rossetti appears to have been obsessed with her own pending death. “Remember” couples this persistent thought with an awkward love affair, one in which the speaker, presumably the poet herself, confesses that she may not be as passionately in love with her suitor as he is with her. But since she believes she is going to die anyway, her ambivalence toward him is not the most important issue. Instead, the dominant concern becomes how he will remember her when she is gone. Will he think of her and recall the pain of not knowing whether she truly loved him or will he remember, rightly or wrongly, that she adored him as much as he adored her ?

Poem performed by Jim Clark

Kind Regards

Jim Clark All rights are reserved on this sound recording copyright Jim Clark 2012 hyperbolelad@hotmail.com poetryreincarnations at youtube and vimeo