Remember

About

Christina Rossetti's sonnet Remember first appeared in Goblin Market and Other Poems in 1862, and was both warmly and sadly received by readers. Like much of Rossetti's poetry, a mixture of happiness and depression tends to run throughout the poem. One writer comments: Whether it was her struggle with debilitating illnesses or a desire to meet her maker, Rossetti appears to have been obsessed with her own pending death. Remember couples this persistent thought with an awkward love affair, one in which the speaker, presumably the poet herself, confesses that she may not be as passionately in love with her suitor as he is with her. But since she believes she is going to die anyway, her ambivalence toward him is not the most important issue. Instead, the dominant concern becomes how he will remember her when she is gone. Will he think of her and recall the pain of not knowing whether she truly loved him or will he remember, rightly or wrongly, that she adored him as much as he adored her?* Christina Rossetti was born into an artistic family. One of her brothers was Dante Gabriel Rossetti - the painter and a poet - while the other was William Michael Rossetti - a leading art critic and editor. It was William who edited her complete works in 1904 (10 years after her death). At one stage she was engaged to painter James Collinson - a member of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood - but the engagement was broken off in 1850. Her poetry, which is often compared to that of Emily Bronte, is characterized by an overwhelming sense of melancholy. Rossetti contracted cancer in 1891, but an operation prolonged her life until December 1894.

Includes piano part for rehearsal.