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Compare Remember And Longfellow

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As one of the most frequently used themes, death has been portrayed and understood differently throughout modern history as well as by poets Christina Rossetti and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in “Remember” and the “Cross of Snow.” It appears in literature as the preeminent dilemma, one that is often met by emotions such as grief, hopefulness, depression, and one that can encompass the entire essence of any writing piece. However, despite Rossetti’s “Remember” and Longfellow’s “Cross of Snow” employing death as a universal similarity, the tones, narratives, and syntaxes of the poems help create two entire different images of what the works are about in the readers’ minds. At first glance, the theme of death is clearly represented in both “Remember” …show more content…

The speaker in “Remember” has a calm voice evident in the simplicity in the syntax of the poem which is easy to understand starting from the first line, but is increasingly uncertain until it turns commanding. Lines 3 to 8 show the uncertainties of the speaker as they do not know whether or not they will be able to “stay” with the person they are writing the poem to (presumably a beloved someone) or that they will be able to give them advice or “pray”. Yet, the tone takes on a strong personality when the speaker says: “Better by far you should forget and smile/Than that you should remember and be sad” (line 13-14) by this reassuring the recipient that no matter if the speaker dies, it is completely fine if they are forgotten and by this giving the poem a much more lighthearted tone. Unlike “Remember,” the “Cross of Snow” is not a mysterious poem, in fact, Newton Arvin’s biography called Longfellow: His Life and Work states that the poem was actually written to mourn his wife, who died horribly after her dress caught on fire from an ember in the chimney as the couple rested. Although, Longfellow tried to put the fire out, he did so unsuccessfully and in the meantime, burning his own face with scars he covered up with his long beard. Moreover, Longfellow’s wife was kept alive four days in hope of curing her, but at that point no one could help and she died. The poem, therefore, picks up a tone of isolation, emphasized by the cold atmosphere that the wintery scene

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