Michael Coates 10D
Comparison of “into my heart…” and “ I remember I remember”
Both poems are about the past and are similar in many ways, but “I remember, I remember” seems much more upbeat about the past than “into my heart…”
A.E. Housman’s poem describes the “ lost content” of a speaker who is made
unhappy when he realises the happy times he had when he was young are gone forever.
In Thomas Hood’s poem the speaker is also made unhappy when he is made aware that he can never re-visit those happy times he experienced as a child. They both explain the same idea in a different way; “Into my heart…” makes its point in an obviously sombre way, but “ I remember I remember ” creates two moods: a happy and bucolic mood with images of his beautiful childhood, and an unhappy mood with his realisation that the past which was so great and wonderful can never again be revisited.
“ Into my heart…” uses a symbolic landscape to represent the past. The “ far country” symbolises time rather than distance. It is a memory from a long time ago that is very different from the life that the speaker is now leading. The memories seem happy because the symbolic landscape is rural and idyllic. This landscape has hills, farms and spires, which suggest that the speaker once led a simple life, which is very different from the life he is now leading, and a life to which he can never return.