Discuss Rossetti’s portrayal of death and the afterlife in Remember.
Explore language, imagery, verse form and consider how you find it characteristic of Rossetti’s work in the collection.
Growing up in an age renowned for its narrow-minded and obsessive behaviour when concering death, Rossetti conscripted her works idolising the methods of grievance and remorse, producing poems that fixate on the idea of death and afterlife. Additionally being heavily insprired by religion, her work shows traces of Christian messages revolving death and her beliefs about heaven.
Remember is tells the story of The narrator, who we preseume to represent Rossetti, address her lover and encourages him to remember her after her death. She asks him to remember …show more content…
Following a similar structure, the poem is laid out like a dialogue to a loved one, and similarly follows a regular stanza length. But however unlike Remember the poem has an irregular rhyming scheme thus giving it a broken structure; this could imply the corruption of the world that the narrator refers to “hear the nightingale…as if in pain” and that death is an unsteady release into heaven, as we get rewarded for facing the harsh realities of life.
The meaning behind this poem follows the idea that once the narrator is dead, do not bother attending my grave “plant thou no roses at my head” as once I die, let me be forgotten and move on as I am no longer with you “Haply I may remember” as “dreaming through the twilight”-this effect is parallel to Remember as it shows how someone can lose themselves once they are dead and may no longer remember who they are so they urge their love ones to do the same “haply may …show more content…
She uses similes such as “eyes as bright as sunlight” to show innocence and purity, similar to that of an angel, thereby referencing religious connation’s. Also the use of the oxymoron “bittersweet” could be her attempt of describing death, as the bitterness being the leaving behind but the sweetness of moving on and peace. An alternative interpretation could be the inference of sexual undertones and temptation, similar to her work the Goblin Market, she refers temptation in this context as a desire to be reunited “come back to me”. Also the use of imperatives greatly links with remember as it indicates the narrator’s desperation to make peace with their lover with “come” “watch” and “speak”. The imagery Rossetti has decided to use relates to dream-like, heavenly ideas. “Should have been in paradise” has two alternative perspectives, either the narrator is demonstrating her wish for them both to die together or otherwise for him to be awakened in “paradise” meaning heaven demonstrating their pure love for each
Explore language, imagery, verse form and consider how you find it characteristic of Rossetti’s work in the collection.
Growing up in an age renowned for its narrow-minded and obsessive behaviour when concering death, Rossetti conscripted her works idolising the methods of grievance and remorse, producing poems that fixate on the idea of death and afterlife. Additionally being heavily insprired by religion, her work shows traces of Christian messages revolving death and her beliefs about heaven.
Remember is tells the story of The narrator, who we preseume to represent Rossetti, address her lover and encourages him to remember her after her death. She asks him to remember …show more content…
Following a similar structure, the poem is laid out like a dialogue to a loved one, and similarly follows a regular stanza length. But however unlike Remember the poem has an irregular rhyming scheme thus giving it a broken structure; this could imply the corruption of the world that the narrator refers to “hear the nightingale…as if in pain” and that death is an unsteady release into heaven, as we get rewarded for facing the harsh realities of life.
The meaning behind this poem follows the idea that once the narrator is dead, do not bother attending my grave “plant thou no roses at my head” as once I die, let me be forgotten and move on as I am no longer with you “Haply I may remember” as “dreaming through the twilight”-this effect is parallel to Remember as it shows how someone can lose themselves once they are dead and may no longer remember who they are so they urge their love ones to do the same “haply may …show more content…
She uses similes such as “eyes as bright as sunlight” to show innocence and purity, similar to that of an angel, thereby referencing religious connation’s. Also the use of the oxymoron “bittersweet” could be her attempt of describing death, as the bitterness being the leaving behind but the sweetness of moving on and peace. An alternative interpretation could be the inference of sexual undertones and temptation, similar to her work the Goblin Market, she refers temptation in this context as a desire to be reunited “come back to me”. Also the use of imperatives greatly links with remember as it indicates the narrator’s desperation to make peace with their lover with “come” “watch” and “speak”. The imagery Rossetti has decided to use relates to dream-like, heavenly ideas. “Should have been in paradise” has two alternative perspectives, either the narrator is demonstrating her wish for them both to die together or otherwise for him to be awakened in “paradise” meaning heaven demonstrating their pure love for each