Remember - Classic Text | Alexandria
Remember - Christina Georgina Rossetti (1894)
"Remember," one of Christina Rossetti's most celebrated sonnets, stands as a masterful exploration of love, mortality, and memory, published in her seminal collection "Goblin Market and Other Poems" (1862). The Petrarchan sonnet, written when Rossetti was just 19 years old, exemplifies the Victorian preoccupation with death while transcending its era to speak to universal human experiences of loss and remembrance.
First composed in 1849 during a period of intense personal and spiritual reflection, "Remember" emerged from the broader context of Victorian mourning culture, where elaborate rituals and memorials characterized society's approach to death. Rossetti, deeply influenced by the Anglo-Catholic movement and her Pre-Raphaelite artistic connections, crafted the poem during an age when mortality rates remained high and the act of remembrance held profound social and spiritual significance.
The sonnet's evolution in public consciousness reflects changing attitudes toward death and memory. While initially received as a conventional Victorian meditation on mortality, modern interpretations have unveiled its sophisticated psychological complexity. The poem's volta (turn) in the sestet, where the speaker releases their beloved from the obligation to remember, represents a radical departure from traditional Victorian mourning poetry. This tension between remembrance and release has fascinated scholars and readers alike, inspiring numerous musical settings and artistic interpretations.
Rossetti's masterpiece continues to resonate in contemporary culture, particularly in discussions of grief, memory, and the nature of love. Its inclusion in countless anthologies and its frequent use in funeral services testifies to its enduring emotional power. Modern critics have noted its remarkable anticipation of contemporary attitudes toward grief, where the permission to forget becomes as important as the act of remembrance. The poem's lasting influence raises intriguing questions about the nature of memory itself: Is remembrance an act of love or burden? How do we honor those we've lost while continuing to live fully? These questions, first posed by Rossetti over 150 years ago, remain hauntingly relevant today.