The Full Text of “Cousin Kate”
1I was a cottage maiden
2Hardened by sun and air
3Contented with my cottage mates,
4Not mindful I was fair.
5Why did a great lord find me out,
6And praise my flaxen hair?
7Why did a great lord find me out,
8To fill my heart with care?
9He lured me to his palace home -
10Woe's me for joy thereof-
11To lead a shameless shameful life,
12His plaything and his love.
13He wore me like a silken knot,
14He changed me like a glove;
15So now I moan, an unclean thing,
16Who might have been a dove.
17O Lady kate, my cousin Kate,
18You grew more fair than I:
19He saw you at your father's gate,
20Chose you, and cast me by.
21He watched your steps along the lane,
22Your work among the rye;
23He lifted you from mean estate
24To sit with him on high.
25Because you were so good and pure
26He bound you with his ring:
27The neighbors call you good and pure,
28Call me an outcast thing.
29Even so I sit and howl in dust,
30You sit in gold and sing:
31Now which of us has tenderer heart?
32You had the stronger wing.
33O cousin Kate, my love was true,
34Your love was writ in sand:
35If he had fooled not me but you,
36If you stood where I stand,
37He'd not have won me with his love
38Nor bought me with his land;
39I would have spit into his face
40And not have taken his hand.
41Yet I've a gift you have not got,
42And seem not like to get:
43For all your clothes and wedding-ring
44I've little doubt you fret.
45My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride,
46Cling closer, closer yet:
47Your father would give his lands for one
48To wear his coronet.
The Full Text of “Cousin Kate”
1I was a cottage maiden
2Hardened by sun and air
3Contented with my cottage mates,
4Not mindful I was fair.
5Why did a great lord find me out,
6And praise my flaxen hair?
7Why did a great lord find me out,
8To fill my heart with care?
9He lured me to his palace home -
10Woe's me for joy thereof-
11To lead a shameless shameful life,
12His plaything and his love.
13He wore me like a silken knot,
14He changed me like a glove;
15So now I moan, an unclean thing,
16Who might have been a dove.
17O Lady kate, my cousin Kate,
18You grew more fair than I:
19He saw you at your father's gate,
20Chose you, and cast me by.
21He watched your steps along the lane,
22Your work among the rye;
23He lifted you from mean estate
24To sit with him on high.
25Because you were so good and pure
26He bound you with his ring:
27The neighbors call you good and pure,
28Call me an outcast thing.
29Even so I sit and howl in dust,
30You sit in gold and sing:
31Now which of us has tenderer heart?
32You had the stronger wing.
33O cousin Kate, my love was true,
34Your love was writ in sand:
35If he had fooled not me but you,
36If you stood where I stand,
37He'd not have won me with his love
38Nor bought me with his land;
39I would have spit into his face
40And not have taken his hand.
41Yet I've a gift you have not got,
42And seem not like to get:
43For all your clothes and wedding-ring
44I've little doubt you fret.
45My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride,
46Cling closer, closer yet:
47Your father would give his lands for one
48To wear his coronet.
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“Cousin Kate” Introduction
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“Cousin Kate” is a dramatic monologue by the British poet Christina Rossetti. Rossetti wrote “Cousin Kate” while she was a volunteer at the St. Mary Magdalene house for "fallen women," a derogatory 19th-century term for supposedly unchaste women (such as unmarried mothers and sex workers). The poem is told from the perspective of one such woman, who is seduced by a powerful lord and bears his child out of wedlock. "Cousin Kate" is specifically addressed to the speaker's cousin, who marries the lord despite his mistreatment of the speaker. Like many of the other poems included in Rossetti's first and most famous book of poetry, Goblin Market and Other Poems, "Cousin Kate" explores the hypocrisy of gender roles and the dangers of temptation.
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“Cousin Kate” Summary
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I was an unmarried young woman who was used to working outside in the elements. I was happy with my simple cottage life and companions, unconcerned with my looks. Why did a high-ranking nobleman have to notice me and compliment my blonde hair? Why did a high-ranking nobleman have to notice me and make me care about him?
The lord tempted me to go to his luxurious house. How foolish of me for having some fun there, for shamelessly entering into a shameful sexual relationship with him. I felt like both a toy for the lord to play with and someone he deeply cared about. He treated me like an accessory, trying me out as a partner as if he were trying on a silk necktie, and changing me out for another woman as if he were taking off a pair of gloves. So now I'm stuck crying and complaining, as someone who has lost her chastity and is no longer a virgin, even though I had the potential to be a perfect model of purity.
Oh Lady Kate, my cousin Kate. You became more beautiful than I was. The lord noticed you standing by the gate in front of your father's house and decided to pursue you romantically, tossing me aside. He watched you walk along the country road and working in the rye fields. He elevated you from your humble, lower-class life to a higher social standing.
Because you were so moral and a virgin, the lord took decided to ask you to marry him. The local townspeople praise you for being virtuous and sexually pure, while they consider me unfit for society. And while I'm stuck in a lowly, working-class home and crying out in grief, you're surrounded by wealth and sing out with joy. Now, which one of us has more compassion? You had more determination, which allowed you to rise above me like a bird with stronger wings.
Oh Kate, my cousin, my love for the lord was genuine and deep, whereas your love was weak and could be easily washed away, like a message written in sand. If the lord had seduced you instead of me, and if you were in my shoes, the lord wouldn't have been able to win me over with his affection or his wealth. Instead, I would have spit in his face and denied his hand in marriage.
However, I have a blessing that you don't have and likely never will. It's even more valuable than all of your fancy new clothes and your wedding ring, and I can tell that this bothers you. I have my blond-haired son, who is a reminder of my shame at my impure actions, but who's also what I'm most proud of. Son, hold onto me tightly, and even more tightly. Your father will probably pass his wealth and status onto you so that he can carry on the family name.
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“Cousin Kate” Themes
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Gender, Morality, and Hypocrisy
Christina Rossetti published “Cousin Kate” in 1862, during Britain’s Victorian era—a period in which when gender biases created starkly different social expectations for men and women. While it was generally acceptable for men to give in to sexual temptations, women were expected to be chaste and uphold the moral fabric of society. At the same time, however, women were taught to be submissive towards the men in their lives. “Cousin Kate” shows how such narrow, gendered expectations thus lead to a sort of catch-22 for women, as the speaker obediently submits herself to the sexual desires of a powerful lord, yet, in doing so, becomes a social outcast. As such, the poem implicitly critiques the gender ideals of the Victorian era, presenting them as conflicting, hypocritical, and essentially burdening women with the impossible charge of both obeying and resisting the much more powerful men in their lives.
The poem clearly establishes how conventional gender roles create a power imbalance that increases the speaker’s societal vulnerability. The speaker describes herself as a pure, happy young woman before “a great lord” notices her, compliments her beauty, and seduces her. As a man, the lord is free to do whatever he wants, while the speaker is merely the object of his actions; he treats her like a “plaything” rather than a human being. Yet as a woman (and a lower-class one at that), the speaker is subordinate to the lord and therefore under pressure to bow to his whims—even if doing so represents a supposed moral transgression on the speaker’s part.
The speaker then faces severe social consequences for the affair while the lord is not. The speaker’s community views her as “unclean” and as “an outcast thing” for failing to uphold her moral duty to remain a virgin. And as a result of her sexual impurity, the speaker is considered unfit for marriage—which was important for Victorian women’s survival—and publicly shamed. Unlike the speaker, however, the lord’s sexual activities leave his perceived fitness as a husband and social status unaffected. The lord easily takes the speaker’s “good and pure” cousin Kate as a wife and the two of them “sit … on high.”
The speaker resents her cousin for failing to stick by her female relative’s side, demonstrating how such hypocritical gender standards pit women against each other as they compete for the affection of men. The speaker tells Kate that if the circumstances were reversed and the lord “fooled” Kate rather than the speaker, the speaker would have spit in the lord’s face and denied his hand in marriage. Thus although Kate’s chastity labels her “good and pure,” the speaker indicates that Kate was wrong to overlook the lord’s treatment of the speaker. The speaker even emphasizes their relationship when she refers to Kate explicitly as “cousin,” suggesting that Kate has betrayed familial loyalty.
At the same time, however, Kate is clearly subject to the same power imbalances that the speaker deals with. The speaker does not claim that these circumstances absolve Kate of wrongdoing and instead holds her to a moral standard that requires more than sexual purity; in doing so, the speaker implicitly rejects sexual virtue as the ultimate marker of women’s social value.
The speaker seems to imply that women should stick together in the face of such blatant hypocrisy, yet she, too, ultimately aims to one-up her cousin—declaring that having a son by the lord ties her to him just as strongly as any marriage contract, and that knowledge of this makes her cousin “fret,” or worry. Such an ending underscores how few options women had within the oppressive gender norms of Victorian society—and how even playing by the supposed rules was no guarantee of success, since the game would always be rigged against them.
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Lust, Love, and Temptation
Each of the characters in the poem faces the temptations of love and lust. The lord’s lust for the speaker incites her love and, in turn, compromises her purity, while Kate’s material desires cause her to betray the speaker. Through their stories, the poem suggests that both genuine love and its shallower cousin, lust, can be dangerous. It reads like a cautionary tale about unchecked desire in general, suggesting how this may tempt people to stray from their (societally-imposed) moral principles.
Most obviously, the lord’s lustful advances tempt the speaker into acting in a way that society has deemed sinful. The speaker is “not mindful [she is] fair” before the lord expresses his attraction to her. In other words, she isn’t overly concerned with vanity before the lord steps in. Yet once he begins “praising” her hair, things change. His compliments signal that the lord is infatuated with the speaker’s looks and that, for him, their relationship is about shallow physical desires rather than deep connection.
His lust is also clearly a selfish emotion, given that he doesn’t seem to care that his desires prove so disastrous for the speaker. Indeed, the speaker lives a happy, simple life before the lord “[fills] her heart with care.” She claims that if the lord hadn’t gone and noticed her, she “might have been a dove,” indicating that her struggles to maintain moral purity stem from her feelings for the lord. The speaker knows their affair is “shameful” but it feels “shameless.” Her intense desires for the lord confuse her sense of decency and ultimately make her “unclean” in her neighbors' eyes. The speaker’s inability to uphold her moral duties makes her unfit for society or a husband, leaving her to “sit and howl in dust.” Love, then, rather than bringing the speaker joy or connection, leads only to her downfall.
Kate’s longing to increase her wealth and social standing, meanwhile, acts as its own form of lust. This ultimately overwhelms her Victorian moral sensibilities, causing her to betray her cousin. The speaker accuses Kate of materialism, implying that Kate disregards her familial obligation to side with the speaker so that Kate can access the lord’s money and status. For example, the speaker insinuates that the lord is able to buy Kate’s love “with his land.” The speaker also calls out some of the fancy belongings, like “clothes and [a] wedding-ring,” that Kate has now that the lord has “lifted” her to a higher class.
The speaker, for her part, insists that her feelings for the lord are categorically different from Kate’s. The speaker repeatedly compares Kate’s love, which was “writ in sand” to her own “true” love for the lord, suggesting that Kate’s material lust is a less stable, less honorable foundation for a relationship than the speaker’s own feelings. At the same time, of course, the fact that her love was supposedly pure does not change the speaker’s status as a fallen woman. Romantic entanglements in general, the poem implies, are a risky business—in that they can lead people to stray from a more virtuous path.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Cousin Kate”
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Lines 1-4
I was a cottage maiden
Hardened by sun and air
Contented with my cottage mates,
Not mindful I was fair.The first four lines of the poem set the scene for the reader. The speaker of the poem is a "maiden" (a.k.a. a young, unmarried woman) who lives in a rural town in the countryside (a common setting for Rossetti's poems). She mentions having grown used to being in the "sun and air," suggesting that she works outside in some nearby fields. She also indicates that she has local friends and acquaintances when she references her "cottage mates." (The repetition of the word "cottage," technically an example of diacope, reinforces this image of a quaint, humble environment.)
Notably, she also isn't "mindful [she is] fair." This means she isn't aware of her beauty, or at the least isn't terribly concerned with her looks. It also subtly foreshadows the way that the poem will link desire and lust with danger; before attraction gets involved, the speaker's life is uncomplicated.
For now, though, the speaker is pleased with this simple life; she feels "contented." This word receives quite a lot of emphasis for a few reasons:
- It occurs at the beginning of a line and therefore draws the reader's attention visually.
- It has three syllables, making it the longest word in the poem's opening quatrain. It takes longer to say than any of the surrounding words, attracting further attention.
- It echos nearby sounds via assonance and consonance, namely the /co/ sound that appears twice with "cottage" and the /en/ sound in "maiden" and "hardened."
All that's to say that the speaker's contentment is central to her characterization of her life at this point in time.
The opening lines also set the stage for the abundant consonance that will pervade the rest of the poem. Perhaps most notably, there are many /k/, /t/, /m/, and /f/ sounds:
Contented with my cottage mates,
Not mindful I was fairThis consonance creates a feeling of melody and lyricism, with the hum of the /m/ bouncing off the pop of the /k/ and /t/. The soft /f/ and /l/ of "mindful" and "fair" will also echo throughout the rest of the poem.
While the remainder of the poem sticks closely to common meter, its first two lines are irregular. Common meter has an iambic rhythm, created by an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable in a da-DUM pattern. The lines alternate between four iambs (eight syllables) per line and three iambs (six syllables) per line. Here is a closer look at the meter in the first two lines:
I was | a cot- | tage mai- | den
Hardened | by sun | and airAs you can see, the first line is missing its final stressed syllable, while the first foot of the second line is inverted into a trochee. That is, it begins with a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Thus, the iamb seems to stretch across from line 1 into line 2. The enjambment and asyndeton here contribute to this effect, causing the first line to naturally flow into the second. As such, even though things are a bit irregular metrically, they still sound smooth and gentle. The next two lines are then totally regular:
Content- | ed with | my cot- | tage mates,
Not mind- | ful I | was fair.The rhyme scheme so far follows an ABCB pattern, though the first syllable of "maiden" chimes with "mates" and is also almost assonant with the B rhymes ("air" and "fair"). Altogether, then, these first few lines sound smooth and pleasing—perhaps lulling the reader into a false sense of security.
Finally, it's worth noting that this first quatrain is buffeted on either side by the phrase "I was," placing the setting's tranquility firmly in the past. Indeed, this idyllic scene will serve as a point of comparison for the rest of the poem.
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Lines 5-8
Why did a great lord find me out,
And praise my flaxen hair?
Why did a great lord find me out,
To fill my heart with care? -
Lines 9-12
He lured me to his palace home -
Woe's me for joy thereof-
To lead a shameless shameful life,
His plaything and his love. -
Lines 13-16
He wore me like a silken knot,
He changed me like a glove;
So now I moan, an unclean thing,
Who might have been a dove. -
Lines 17-20
O Lady kate, my cousin Kate,
You grew more fair than I:
He saw you at your father's gate,
Chose you, and cast me by. -
Lines 21-24
He watched your steps along the lane,
Your work among the rye;
He lifted you from mean estate
To sit with him on high. -
Lines 25-28
Because you were so good and pure
He bound you with his ring:
The neighbors call you good and pure,
Call me an outcast thing. -
Lines 29-32
Even so I sit and howl in dust,
You sit in gold and sing:
Now which of us has tenderer heart?
You had the stronger wing. -
Lines 33-36
O cousin Kate, my love was true,
Your love was writ in sand:
If he had fooled not me but you,
If you stood where I stand, -
Lines 37-40
He'd not have won me with his love
Nor bought me with his land;
I would have spit into his face
And not have taken his hand. -
Lines 41-44
Yet I've a gift you have not got,
And seem not like to get:
For all your clothes and wedding-ring
I've little doubt you fret. -
Lines 45-48
My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride,
Cling closer, closer yet:
Your father would give his lands for one
To wear his coronet.
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“Cousin Kate” Symbols
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Birds
The birds in "Cousin Kate" represent female sexual purity. The symbol first appears in line 16, when the speaker says she "might have been a dove." Doves are small birds with white feathers and have long been used to represent purity. The speaker uses this familiar image to suggest that if the lord had not seduced her, she might have maintained her chastity and therefore could have been seen as a representation of female virtue.
The speaker reprises the metaphor in the fourth stanza when she asks whether she or Kate has the "tenderer heart," or more compassion. She then states that Kate "had the stronger wing," meaning that Kate has greater moral determination, and has risen above the speaker to achieve greater purity. The speaker contrasts this with her own tenderness towards the lord and implies that her genuine care for him weakens her “wing,” or ability to remain chaste.
In the Christian tradition, birds, and especially doves, indicate the presence of the Holy Spirit. As a woman's chastity was seen as evidence of her piety during the Victorian era and Rossetti was deeply religious, this tradition reinforces the association between birds and sexual purity within the poem.
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Clothing and Accessories
Throughout the poem, various articles of clothing and pieces of jewelry signify the relative strength of different characters' relationships to the lord. For example, the speaker says that the lord "wore [her] like a silken knot" and "changed [her] like a glove." The lord treats the speaker like she is a disposable—an accessory that can be tried on at will and easily taken off. Thus, the accessories that describe the speaker's relationship with the lord represent the impermanence of his attention and affection for her.
Later in the poem, the wedding ring that the lord gives Kate "binds" her to him. In contrast to the accessories that characterize the speaker's short-lived relationship with the lord, this ring symbolizes a lasting bond—the permanence of his marriage to Kate. However, in the final stanza, the speaker gloats that this ring, along with all of the other fancy clothes that the lord gives Kate, cannot tie her to the lord as strongly as giving him a son would. In the end, the coronet that the lord will presumably give to the speaker's son represents the strongest bond of all—the wealth and status a father bestows on his son.
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Gift
The "gift" the speaker refers to symbolizes her son. This language has resonances with Christian descriptions of children as gifts from God, and especially mirrors Psalm 127:3-5, translated as follows in the New King James Version:
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.The speaker suggests that her child is a blessing from God, a reward that only God can give. She contrasts this divine gift with Kate's "clothes and wedding-ring," gifts from her husband that, no matter their earthly value, cannot be traded for a child. As such, the speaker gloats that although Kate has wealth, status, and the respect of the local townspeople, the speaker has still outdone her in at least one respect, as she is blessed with a “gift” that Kate can never have. Line 45 can be interpreted as a continuation of this biblical allusion; although the speaker is shamed for being an unmarried mother, her son is a most special and valuable “gift,” so she takes pride in him.
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“Cousin Kate” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Anaphora
Rossetti uses anaphora throughout "Cousin Kate," but the most prominent example is the repetition of "he" in the second and third stanzas. This happens as the speaker describes the lord seducing her and courting Kate. The repetitive "he" emphasizes the lord's role in the poem's events, positioning him as an active, driving force behind the speaker's downfall. "He" appears not only at the beginning of many sentences and phrases but also at the beginning of lines, drawing further attention to the lord's pivotal role in the poem and in the speaker's life. Similarly, in the first stanza, the speaker repeats "Why did a great lord find me out?" Again, through repetition, the speaker establishes that the lord instigates the chain of events that follows. By repeatedly suggesting that he provokes her transgressive behavior, the speaker shifts some culpability for her loss of purity from herself onto the lord.
In the fifth stanza, the speaker introduces a hypothetical scenario in which her role and Kate's are reversed:
If he had fooled not me but you,
If you stood where I stand.By reiterating these hypothetical circumstances before revealing their outcome, the speaker builds anticipation, increasing the sense of tension as she criticizes Kate.
Finally, in line 45, the speaker refers to the child she conceived with the lord:
My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride
The repetition of "my" equates the words that follow each "my" with one another and with the speaker herself. This effect works alongside paradox to emphasize the speaker's ambivalence about her son, who is simultaneously a great source of pride for the speaker and the reason society shames her. It also foregrounds the conflicting messages that the speaker receives about morality, as she is shamed for getting pregnant out of wedlock, but the child she had stands to inherit great wealth and status.
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Antithesis
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Apostrophe
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Assonance
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Chiasmus
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Consonance
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Metaphor
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Metonymy
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Paradox
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Parallelism
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Repetition
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Rhetorical Question
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Simile
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"Cousin Kate" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Maiden
- Hardened
- Fair
- Flaxen
- Silken knot
- Moan
- Dove
- Cast me by
- Rye
- Mean estate
- On high
- Wing
- Writ
- Like
- Fret
- Fair-haired
- Coronet
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A young woman, especially one who is unmarried. "Maiden" is often used interchangeably with "virgin." When the speaker uses "maiden" to describe herself before she met the lord, she indicates that she was sexually pure before their relationship.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Cousin Kate”
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Form
"Cousin Kate" is a ballad. Every ballad has a bouncy rhyme scheme and tells a story, but beyond that this form of poetry has many variations. Traditional ballads are made up of quatrains, or 4-line stanzas, consisting of alternating 8-syllable and 6-syllable lines. Each of the 6 octaves, or 8-line stanzas, in "Cousin Kate" is indeed made up of two traditional four-line quatrains.
Many ballads also have a refrain, or a line that repeats throughout the poem to draw attention to its key themes. While this poem doesn't have a conventional refrain, it makes ample use of repetition. Ballads often focus on love and many contain allegories that teach moral lessons. Rossetti draws from these traditions as she weaves romance, desire, and ruin into the story of "Cousin Kate," warning its readers about the dangers of giving in to temptation.
Ballads were also often originally set to music because their use of repetition, simple rhymes, and bouncy rhythm makes them easy to remember. Rossetti is known for using straightforward forms, like the ballad, to ensure a wide audience is able to follow her stories and tease out their meanings. In "Cousin Kate," Rossetti sticks closely to common meter, which is conventional for ballads, and uses familiar language, keeping her poems accessible to a broad readership. "Cousin Kate" is also easy to follow structurally, as the narrative generally moves forward in time from one stanza to the next.
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Meter
Like most of Rossetti's poems, "Cousin Kate" follows a strict metrical pattern. In this case, the poem employs common meter, which is traditional for ballads. The building block for common meter is the iamb, a da-DUM pattern, created by an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Common meter consists of alternating lines of four iambs (iambic tetrameter) and three iambs (iambic trimeter). For example, line 15 is written in iambic tetrameter, while line 16 is written in iambic trimeter:
So now | I moan | an un- | clean thing,
Who might | have been | a dove.For the most part, the meter throughout "Cousin Kate" is very steady and predictable. Rossetti's rare deviations from this pattern accent individual words, emphasizing their meaning within the poem. For example, the first line of the poem is missing its final stress and the first foot of the second line is inverted, so that the first syllable is a trochee (stressed-unstressed) rather than an iamb:
I was | a cot- | tage maiden
Hardened | by sun | and airNotice how the da-DUM pattern here actually stretches over the line break, the unstressed "den" of "maiden" combining with the first stressed beat of "Hardened" to basically create an iamb (den / Har). This works in conjunction with the enjambment here that causes the first line to spill over into the second. Together, this creates rhythmic momentum and a dramatic sense of urgency at the poem's outset. Plus, the additional stress on "hardened" lends it an increased harshness that seems to reflect the word's meaning.
Rossetti replaces initial iambs with trochees in a few other places within the poem. In some cases, the additional emphasis on the first syllable heightens the effect of antithesis, underscoring the differences between the speaker and Kate. Take a look at the meter in line 20, which again opens with a trochee:
Chose you, | and cast | me by
In this example, the use of caesura makes the divergence from the meter even more dramatic. Both "Chose" and "cast" are stressed, allowing both to stand out to the ear and underscore the gulf between the speaker and Kate. Overall, though, Rossetti's deviation from common meter is minimal; the poem flows almost seamlessly, drawing further attention to the few moments where she plays with rhythm to enhance the poem's tone and echo its images.
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Rhyme Scheme
Traditional ballads consist of quatrains that have an ABCB rhyme scheme. The stanzas in "Cousin Kate" consist of two quatrains (creating an octave) and the pattern they follow is a continuation of the traditional ballad rhyme scheme:
ABCBDBEB
Rossetti uses the above pattern as a template, which she follows exactly in the second stanza. But in many of the other stanzas, she adds many additional repeating end rhymes. For example, the third stanza has the following rhyme scheme:
ABABCBAB
For instance, in that third stanza Rossetti links "Kate" to her "father's gate" and to the "mean estate" from which she is lifted. The long /a/ at the end of line 21 associates "the lane" with this grouping via assonance (i.e., there's also a long /a/ sound in all these rhymes); this might even be classified as a slant rhyme. She also weaves these end rhymes between stanzas: all these rhymes in stanza three connect to the "cottage mates" mentioned way back line 13 of the first stanza. All of the words and phrases that Rossetti ties to "Kate" through rhyme have to do with her humble beginnings, emphasizing Kate's closeness to the lower-class way of life that she now looks down upon.
There are also moments when the repeated B rhyme of one stanza appears at the end of a line in another stanza. For instance, the sounds that end line 15 and line 43—"unclean thing" and "wedding-ring," respectively—rhyme perfectly with the end rhymes of the 6-syllable lines in stanza 4—"ring," "thing," "sing," and "wing.” A similar effect links "love,” at the end of line 37, with the end rhymes of stanza 2.
Rossetti’s use of rhyme creates chains of sonically linked words and weaves them throughout the poem to create a complex web of associations. This web mirrors the complicated love triangle and intertwined family trees that the speaker, the lord, and Kate find themselves in.
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“Cousin Kate” Speaker
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The speaker of “Cousin Kate” is a woman who remains nameless but shares many aspects of her personal life. Over the course of the poem, a powerful man seduces and impregnates her, then casts her aside to marry her sexually pure cousin, Kate. The speaker presents herself sympathetically by describing her own misfortunes and highlighting other characters' misdeeds. The speaker reprimands Kate most forcefully and directly. Beginning in line 17, the speaker addresses Kate, accusing her of betraying family loyalty by marrying the lord even after he mistreats the speaker.
The speaker’s tone shifts in the final stanza, when she stops pleading with her cousin to see the error of her ways and instead tries to one-up Kate. The speaker brags that her son will inherit the lord's wealth since Kate is unable to give the lord a son. By the poem's end, the speaker no longer appears to be a naive, sympathetic young girl who is misled and mistreated.
Rossetti was extremely devout and turned down multiple suitors for religious reasons. Therefore, the speaker’s decision to compromise her purity for love distances her from the poet. However, Rossetti also volunteered at a house for “fallen women” (woman who'd had sex outside of wedlock) during the time she wrote “Cousin Kate,” so their stories probably incited Rossetti’s sympathy and inspired the speaker’s tone and experiences.
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“Cousin Kate” Setting
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"Cousin Kate" takes place in a small, rural town, complete with cottages, rustic roads, and fields of grain. Although the setting does not change over the course of the poem, the speaker's attitude towards it does. At first, the speaker is happy with her humble surroundings, but a powerful lord exposes her to luxury, shattering her contentment with working-class life. Later, the speaker complains about the setting, which she now finds shabby and indecent.
While the poem does not disclose exactly when and where its events take place, it is reasonable to infer that "Cousin Kate" is set in 19th-century Great Britain, where Rossetti wrote and published her poems. Indeed, the strict social expectations that the speaker describes are characteristic of Britain's Victorian era (1837-1901).
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Literary and Historical Context of “Cousin Kate”
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Literary Context
Christina Rossetti is one of the most well-known poets of the Victorian era. She is often praised for her natural lyrical gift—a strong command of form, meter, rhyme, and straightforward language. Rossetti's mastery of verse gives her poems an air of simplicity on the surface, while its secondary meanings are subtle and implicit.
Rossetti admired fellow 19th-century poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to whom she is often compared. Goblin Market and Other Poems, Rossetti's first book, was published in 1862, the year after Barrett Browning died. Rossetti was seen as Barrett Browning's natural successor, the next great woman poet of the time. However, Rossetti's work was less overtly political, more concerned with the actions of individuals rather than broad social reform. While both poets often explored religious themes, Rossetti's work is much more straightforward in its ideas and language.
Rossetti grew up in an artistically gifted family of writers, painters, and scholars. Her most accomplished family member was her older brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who co-founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an artistic group focused on imitating nature and painting realistically with vivid color and detailed imagery. While Christina Rossetti was never an official member, she had close relationships with group members and published poems in their periodical.
The group's influence is reflected in Rossetti's minute attention to detail, pastoral settings, use of symbolism, and medieval inspiration (such as the ballad form). Dante Gabriel was also instrumental to Rossetti's poetic output in other ways: he encouraged her to submit her poems to publications, created art for her books, negotiated with publishers, and corresponded with Rossetti extensively to provide feedback on her work.
"Cousin Kate" is an example of a dramatic monologue, a form in which the speaker is a specific character who addresses someone—the reader, the poet, or another character—who remains silent. The dramatic monologue was emerging as a new form around the time Rossetti wrote "Cousin Kate." It was popularized by Alfred, Lord Tennyson ("Ulysses") and Robert Browning ("My Last Duchess"), among other contemporary poets, including Rossetti herself.
Historical Context
Rossetti wrote "Cousin Kate" during Britain's Victorian era, the period from 1837 to 1901 during which Queen Victoria of England ruled. Victorian gender roles were incredibly strict and narrow, and as a result men and women were held to vastly different social standards.
Women were seen as the property of men and were taught to obey men's wishes. It was common for men to have extramarital affairs without consequence, while women—who were expected to be sexually pure—were ostracized for the same behavior. Thus, women had to both obey men's wishes and deny their sexual advances. Furthermore, since women had little opportunity to rise in social class, worsened by the extreme wealth gaps of the Victorian era, they had to compete with one another to win over possible husbands.
Additionally, the Rossetti family was swept up in the Oxford Movement, a mid-19th-century revival of Catholicism in Britain that sought to restore older Christian traditions. Many of its prominent practitioners, known as Tractarians, were poets, such as John Henry Newman and John Keble. Rossetti was deeply religious and her faith was essential to her poetic output. Tractarian influence can be observed in Rossetti's interest in moral allegory and medieval verse forms, as well as her broader use of poetry to express religious concerns.
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More “Cousin Kate” Resources
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External Resources
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Gender and Sexuality in the 19th Century — A collection of articles on gender and sexuality in the Victorian era, written by a biographer of Christina Rossetti and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
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In Our Time: Christina Rossetti — A 45-minute podcast episode in which literary scholars discuss Rossetti's life and work for BBC Radio 4.
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The Oxford Movement — The Wikipedia page for the Oxford Movement, including a list of associated figures.
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Rossetti's Biography — An in-depth account of of Rossetti's life, including a detailed discussion of her writings and links to many of her poems.
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A Reading — A reading of "Cousin Kate" on YouTube.
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Art Term: Pre-Raphaelites — A brief, straightforward overview of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood from the Tate Museum.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Christina Rossetti
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