Compare and Contrast the ways in which Christina Rossetti communicates her attitudes towards death in “Song” and “Remember” Essay
In both “Song” and “Remember”, Rossetti provides her own attitudes toward death through writing about just how others should treat her death and exactly how she wants to be kept in mind, respectively. Your woman addresses significant ideas and also using term choice and the metrical theme to paint a clear photo of her perceptions of death. As a poet, Rossetti uses her choice and form of phrases as a way of conveying her initial feelings towards fatality. In “Song” the strengthen is quickly set by the ingenuous and candid initial line, “When I i am dead my personal dearest”.
That portrays a surprisingly practical approach to fatality on behalf of the poet and demonstrates a great emotionally unattached attitude to it, trusting that it is inescapable; hence the lady does not undercover dress the subject of this poem in clichéd euphemism. The rest of the verse develops this, where the lady uses imperatives, “Sing”, “Plant” and “Be”, stressed on the beginnings of their lines, to exhibit that she’s adamant that her partner should distribute with all the standard trappings of grief. The verse is heavily embellished in associations of grieving, Rossetti producing reference to several symbols from it as your woman can, “roses at my head”, “sad songs” and a “cypress tree”, almost to satire the traditions during.
Clearly, her views happen to be that people should accept fatality as fated, although she also carries a strengthen of not caring as to what her partner should do, telling him that your woman does not brain whether this individual wishes to consider or ignore her, “And if thou wilt, keep in mind, And if thou wilt, forget”. This apathy is just as effective as the orders to not grieve, while she rejects the traditional and overt mental intensity of the Pre-Raphaelites, exhibited in poems such as “The Blessed Damozel”, parodying all of them.
She surface finishes the poem in this manner, making use of the ambiguity of “haply, whereby it could be a great archaic type of happily, and so she will not really be unhappy, or it might mean “perhaps” showing her everyday and impervious attitude to whether she drops dead or not really. In “Remember”, imperatives double to give an expression that she wants her death cured in a selected way, the first range being requiring and insistent, “Remember myself when I am gone away”. Immediately, her perceptions of death are most often that it is a last thing, hence she needs her spouse to be sure to consider her, making use of this same crucial verb 3 x in the octet.
It could nearly suggest that she’s scared of loss of life, realising that she will become “Gone much away” and have no contact with earth once again, and “Nor I 1 / 2 turn to go, yet turning stay” echo her unwillingness to perish, and a feeling of fear of this. However , these lines likewise reveal a flawed romance, whereby the girl had been handled by her officious partner. The use of the imperatives therefore can be Rossetti right now trying to change these functions and control him, due to her animosity towards him; “You show me of our foreseeable future that you plann’d”. The accusatory tone can be emphasised by the spondee about “you plann’d” and the move from “our” to “you” suggests aggression.
Clearly, she’s using her death in an effort to make her partner understand his errors, and feel guilty through having to consider her for a change, and the fact that now she is going to have to be in a “silent land” where he can “no even more hold myself by the hand”. However , we have a shift in Rossetti’s sculpt indicated by volta, “Yet”, as the sestet starts, moving using this idea of challenging that her partner keep in mind her, to that of not caring to the matter.
It seems she realises that their marriage was mistaken and that your woman didn’t really love this man who tried to control her after all, therefore she suddenly does not seem to mind in the event he “should forget me for a while” and in simple fact tells him, “do certainly not grieve” if perhaps he feels guilty to get doing so. The lady reaches a fatalistic popularity that she is going to die, and this it doesn’t matter what her partner decides to do, mainly because she today appreciates that she should never make him “remember and be sad” when he could “forget and smile”, moving on with his life, rather than tied to recalling someone who would not love him.
However , it might be interpreted that here, Rossetti is again playing with the thought of guilt, and that she dons this apathy in order to leave her partner in limbo as to if to neglect or keep in mind her. Most likely this is her ploy to generate him feel the guilt of trying to control her and through accomplishing this, he will appreciate his wrongs, and thus recently been controlled simply by her, for you to argue to be her target, as the greatest form of payback. Her mention of the how the lady “shall not hear the nightingale sing on as if in pain” is also subversive, this time, of literary custom.
In beautifully constructed wording at the time, there would regularly be a reverent and eulogistic attitude to the nightingale, just like in “Ode to a Nightingale” by Keats, where he creates how the chicken “singest of summer in full-throated ease” and so describing a chicken with a fabulous song, appreciated by everybody. However , Rossetti writes which the bird appears “in pain”, demonstrating a great irreverent and caustically dismissive attitude to such regular writing.
Rossetti describes how death would have been a form of sensory deprivation for her; “I will not see the shadows, I will not feel the rain” and once again, it is unexpected, but the lady seems to discover a comfort in this, writing of these bad things- “shadows…. rain” and what she discovers as a horrible noise, and how she will not really miss all of them when she actually is dead. This kind of shows just how she will not fear fatality but rather perceives it due to its benefits. In “Remember”, the girl rejects faith, writing that “It will probably be late to counsel then or pray”.
She uses the conflict in her relationship with her partner to form the structure for this clash- guidance and assistance, her approach, verses planning to religion for the answer, which in turn would be her partners strategy. Thus, from this, we can determine that the lady does not see death since something in the hands of any devout power previously mentioned her. The second verse could be interpreted to become a response to the first, yet , whereby Rossetti’s lover is conveying his feelings, even though Christina Rossetti herself continues to be writing.
Most likely he is talking of the pain relief it will be never to hear her constantly complaining- he will not have to hear her “sing about as if in pain” as she is suffering from her illnesses or even just rambles on regarding death, or perhaps be between negative feelings, represented in the poem by the “rain “and “shadows”. Given our groups with the twilight series as a calm and quiet time, it seems he will probably be able to live in peace with out her, and still have entire free will as to whether he “may remember” or perhaps “may forget”.
However , since Christina Rossetti is a certain amount as the poet for the entire poem, maybe she is paranoid that this is actually he thinks, so is usually putting their self in his sneakers, and feels guilty in this selfishness, therefore, when your woman writes, “And if thou wilt, bear in mind, And if thou wilt, ignore, she is merely trying to make sure that she does not dominate anymore of his life. In summary, Rossetti’s behaviour to fatality, presented in both “Song” and “Remember” are highly subversive, and decline the pre-Raphaelite conventions of religion and the belief that the female is dependant on their particular partner, in a passive part, and anxieties death far from their partner who they rely on.
