Remember Christina Rossetti Analysis

Both poems, ‘Remember’ by Christina Rossetti and ‘Song Ae Fond Kiss’ by Robert Burns, explores the idea of loss and love. In both poems the love is both cherished and peaceful, yet saddening.

‘Remember’ is a Petrarchan sonnet in iambic pentameter. It consists of an ABBA octave and a CDE sestet. The rhyming patterns in this sonnet are shown to be cyclical indicating that things come back to where they started. The first 8 lines of the poem are about the speaker saying how her beloved should remember her after her death. However, near line 9, she starts to put more focus on forgetfulness than remembrance. By the end of, the speaker mentions that it is better for her lover to forget about her. Burns poem is technically a song written in quatrains

Despite, him being hurt by her decision, there is no sign of bitterness in this poem as he only speaks peacefully and generously in the last two lines of stanza 5– “..ilka joy and treasure”. The lines could suggest that Burns may have wished that her marriage would break down, or that her husband would leave her but he wished her the best. Rossetti’s love was deep and pure in a way that she expresses her emotions and pleads for her beloved to not forgot her; in line 6 she says ‘’that you had planned our future’’ which indicates that there was a deep connection of wanting to be together. Her realisation of making him not forget, will put him in misery of remembering the memories they had together. Like Burns, she sacrifices her personal desire in an expression of true love. What is more, is that both poets are heartbroken in which they grieve but they do not speak negatively about their lovers indicating that they understand that you cannot get everything in

It seems to act like the chorus of the sonnet, however this seems to decrease as if she moves on; it implies that her voice is fading from her life which shows that she will lose all her memories. This could be that she does not want to think of it as an end to anything and make it seem it is more of a trip – “..when I am gone away..”. Rossetti also uses repetition to emphasise the vast boundary between life and death - “gone away,” and later, “gone far away.” Moreover, life is just temporary whereas death is permanent where there is no coming back. “..if you should forget / Better … you should forget” – The imperative “better” forces her lover to not forget. Her tone, here, seems to be controlling through the use of imperatives because she is concerned about him and his love.

Burns also uses alliteration – “dark despair” which places emphasis on his emotions that he lost something that he could never have. Burns also repeats the last stanza to the first stanza which states that he is still that broken-hearted lover left in despair; the rhyming couplet being used at the end refers overall feelings and last words. However Rossetti shows no use of a rhyming couplet suggesting that there is unfinished