Christina Rossetti was an English poet from the nineteenth century, she mainly writes romantic, devotional and children’s poems and was greatly devoted to religion. One of her famous poems “Remember” is a sonnet, which describes a romantic relationship between a man and a woman. However we notice that it can be depicted both as a love and a hate poem. It also dwells on the subject of memory and whether to remember a person after its death or not.

This poem starts with: “Remember when I am gone away, / Gone far away into the silent land;”. The “silent land” and “gone away” are euphemisms of death, these lines suggest that the persona is about to die.  It is also the beginning of a dilemma as the persona tells us to “remember [her] when [she has] gone away”. She repeats it line 5 “remember me” as an emphasis and again line 7 with a slight variation. She adds “only remember me” as if she is the only one we can remember which shows how important she is to her audience. However, she contrasts with it line 9 and 10, she tells us to “forget [her] for a while / and afterwards remember, do not grieve” it could show her grief about leaving this world and that she does not want them sad about her death. She confirms then that she doesn’t want anyone to miss her or be hurt by her absence: “Better by far you should forget and smile / Than that you should remember and be sad”.

We notice that the poem is directed towards someone special for the persona, as it says: “When you can no more hold me by the hand”. The gesture of holding hands usually occurs between couples, which makes us believe that Christina Rossetti is talking to her lover. However, the next line suggests that the woman tried to leave but has been held back which could either lead to the fact that the man loves her too much to let her leave or that she was being abused: “Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.” The persona tells us to “Remember [her]” but also reveals that she and the person she addresses directly spend a lot of time together “day by day” which emphasizes on a close relationship. It is broken as Christina Rossetti insinuates that she had no say about her life and was being dominated: “You tell me of our future that you planned”.  Although the man controls her future, she argues that after her death he will no longer be able to tell her what to do: “Only remember me; you understand / It will be late to counsel then or pray.” The following lines seem to clear that it was a time full of hate and darkness as she says: “do not grieve: / For if the darkness and corruption leave / A vestige of thoughts that once I had”. If the couple had had a happy time together then she wouldn’t have thoughts of killing him and he wouldn’t regret the time he had with her. However, the confusion is restored with the last line as she claims that “Better by far you should forget and smile / Than that you should remember and be sad”. This could either indicate that he will miss the moments they had together or that he will remember the horrors he’d done to her.