REMEMBER

3/27/15

BASIC STUFF
What form of poem is this?
How do you know?
List 4 key elements of this form

14 Lines
Octave/sestet division
Change of POV at the VOLTA
About Love

The poem
Remember
Structure:
Remember me when I am gone away,
14 lines
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
2 quatrains to the Octave
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
Then the sestetfollow the
You tell me of our future that you planned:
punctuation
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Quatrain 1

The focus of the

poem is the
opening word.
We will explore
the idea of
memory.

1st person focus

Repeated but
strengthened
suggesting the
finality of death

Remember me when I am gone

away,
euphemism
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the
hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
2nd character
introduced

Reinforces
the subject
under
discussion

Quatrain 2

Remember me when no more day by

day
You tell me of our future that you
planned:
Only remember me; you understand
Consider :then
why are or
these
It will be late to counsel
pray.

2nd
character
seems to
be
controllin
g not
nec bad
thing

Not asking much

no need to
memorialise

words set in opposition?

What is suggested?

Highlights a
new direction
of thought

After the VOLTA

1st part of
conditional
sentence

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not
grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption
leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I
had,
Better by farConditional
you should
forget
and
is completed. The poem
has totally changed direction.
smile
Than that you should remember and

Imperati
ve:
strength

IDEAS?
LOVE AND LOSS
Attitudes to love
Compare with sonnet 116. Here love should
include allowing a partner to forget a
kindness. Shakespeare will suggest that love
lasts until the edge of doom.
Nature of the relationship the 2 nd character
is controlling. Does the first voice complain or
simply comment?
Find links with other poems in the anthology