REMEMBER

7/13/15

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.

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

Quatrain 1
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,
2
character
Nor I half
turn to go yet turning stay.
introduced
nd

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