Synthesising Rossetti’s views on death. Remember

Venn diagrams, Matrix, constructing tables, Synthesis Synthesise means to take some things (characters or themes) and make them into a new whole e.g. group items, themes or characters into an orderly fashion to consider them as a whole. Being able to synthesise makes you a better learner because you can see parallels and consider bigger ideas. You can start to form opinions about bigger ideas. compose, create, extend, improve, redraft, revise Suggested Routines Venn diagrams, Matrix, constructing tables, mind-mapping

Synthesis: Example It is fair to say that much of Rossetti’s poetry presents love and death as inseparable, perhaps understandably given Rossetti’s doomed romantic relationships on one hand and determined Christianity on the other. In ‘Song: When I am dead my dearest’ for example, the metre of the first line places stresses on ‘I’, ‘dead’ and ‘dear[est]’, uniting the concept of the speaker, her inevitable death (implied by the foregrounded ‘when’) and the addressed ‘dearest’, who could be either a close relative, Rossetti’s beloved mother or devoted sister Maria perhaps, or as is more clearly suggested by the symbolic ‘rose’, a lover. There is earthly love here, but it is quickly undercut by death, beyond which, the speaker ‘haply…may remember’ but just as ‘haply…may’ forget’ her earthly distraction. Likewise, in ‘Sweet Death’ death and religious belief are presented as superior forces to earthly concepts. The speaker’s ‘God of Truth’ is ‘Better than beauty and than youth’, which the inverted foot placing stress on the plosive alliteration to emphasise the force of God’s power. As such, the speaker is forced to ask incredulously, ‘Why should we shrink from our full harvest?’. The metaphor associates death and eternal life as our ‘harvest’, our just desserts after a lifetime of hard work and preparation. The speaker’s disbelief is emphasised by the end focus on the second ‘why’, leading the reader into the question ‘prefer to glean with Ruth?’. The biblical Ruth was a widow, forced to survive by ‘gleaning’ the left overs from the fields. This, for the speaker, is earthly experience – a ‘gleaning’ or scraping by on leftovers as we await our ‘full harvest’ in heaven. Love in this devotional poem is inseparable from death and religious belief, but for Rossetti, inspired by her Tractarian faith, only spiritual love can live up to the promise of heaven: as in ‘Song’, earthly love, like ‘youth and beauty’ which ‘die’ and therefore pass, cannot compete with the ‘lord’ of ‘Rest and Ease’.

‘The realities of life are always a poor substitute for what happens afterwards’ in Rossetti’s poetry. ‘Song: When I am dead my dearest’ ‘On Keats’ ‘Sweet Death’ ‘Remember’ 1. I shall not see the shadows,/ I shall not feel the rain; / I shall not hear the nightingale/ Sing on, as if in pain: 3. ‘most fitting slumber-place/For the strong man grown weary of a race/Soon over’ 5. The youngest blossoms die. They die, and fall and nourish the rich earth From which they lately had their birth; 2. dreaming through the twilight/ That doth not rise nor set’ 4. ‘silence, full of grace,/ Surely hath shed a quiet on his face’ 6. Better than beauty and than youth/Are Saints and Angels, a glad company/And Thou, O lord, our Rest and Ease,/Are better far than these. 7. Why should we shrink from our full harvest? Why/ Prefer to glean with Ruth?

Synthesis Task 1 AO2 Focus Synthesis Task 2 AO5 Focus Synthesis Task 3 AO3 Focus Synthesis Task 4 Compare the imagery of quote 2 with quote 4. What impression does Rossetti give the reader of death here? How do both speakers feel about the possibility of their own death? Compare quote 1 with quote 3. How is life presented by Rossetti? How does she use language and connotations to influence the reader? Considering Keats died early at the age of 25, could you interpret th presentation of death in quote 3 in a different way? Compare quote 2 and quote 5. What do these quotes imply about the religious belief of the speaker? How might this echo Rossetti’s own lifestyle? Compare quote 1 with quote 7. How is life and human existence presented by Rossetti here? You must comment on the syntax of the quotes (word order).

“Remember” Christina Rossetti. (5th December 1830 – 29 December 1894)

REMEMBER me when I am gone away, 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. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann'd: 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.

REMEMBER me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go, then turning stay

Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann’d:

Only remember me; you understand It will be late then 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.