Universality in Emily Brontë’s “Remembrance”

Abstract

Universality in literature means that a piece of literary work is able to reflect universal emotions and evoke responses from men of every face. The essay believes that Emily Brontë’s “Remembrance” is such a poem that achieves universality. It attempts to summarize three universal elements contained in the poem: the universal experience of grief at the death of the beloved, the universal question of “still remember or have forgotten” and the universal truth of living in struggles. These three aspects together reflect the universal emotional progress of a person in the face of long-term deep loss—grief, doubt, fears, guilt, and struggle between the restraint of sadness and indulgence in the wish of death. All these emotions can be seen as universal ways of how one remembers the dead. Besides, with Brontë’s skillful application of poetic devices, it is not difficult for us to sympathize with the emotions expressed in the poem. In a word, Brontë is believed to have made “Remembrance” a poem of universality.