Volume 10 39
flict between private and public. They arrive at very
different interpretations.
So convincing is the description of love that
Packer, in a 1963 biography of Rossetti, explored
the possibility that the poem was addressed to a
specific person. It is well documented that Rossetti
received two offers of marriage, one in 1848, when
she was seventeen, and the other in 1866, when she
was thirty-six. In both cases a difference in reli-
gious beliefs led her to refuse the proposals. How-
ever, “A Birthday” was written in 1857, at which
time Rossetti was not known to be involved with
anyone. While it is certainly possible that Rossetti
could write love lyrics without being that moment
in love, Packer suggests that the poet had a secret
lover, a detail not noted in her earlier biographies.
According to Packer, the object of Rossetti’s
love was a Scottish painter and poet, William Bell
Scott, who was married to another woman. Ros-
setti and Scott were friends and met at times in Lon-
don; she visited him and his wife in Scotland, as
well. Packer develops her idea by researching bio-
graphical information on both Scott and Rossetti.
In addition, she studies the content of many of Ros-
setti’s poems, especially the more melancholy ones,
explaining the basis for the poetry about lost love
and guilt for moral transgression. In Rossetti’s
world view, the thought of adultery was almost as
serious an offence as committing it. Since Packer
concludes that “A Birthday” was written at a happy
time in Rossetti’s and Scott’s relationship, her the-
sis allows for the tension between the private and
public views of love that are expressed in the poem.
However, this hypothesis has not been proved in-
deed, it may be impossible to prove one way or the
other and, thus, is not widely accepted.
Fairchild, in a 1957 essay, analyzes “A Birth-
day” as a religious poem. This view can be sup-
ported by biographical information. Rossetti was
devout; she developed her own personal theology
as well as being attached to the Anglo-Catholic
church. She especially felt a closeness to Jesus,
writing in The Face of the Deep,a work of reli-
gious prose, that she felt “towards the Divine Son
as if he alone were our Friend.” Fairchild, then, has
a basis for suggesting that the love in “A Birthday”
is holy, rather than human.
A review of the poem’s images supports this
view. The speaker first savors the sweetness by
comparing her heart to natural things. It makes
sense that a celebration of the natural world would
follow a “mystical apprehension,” or a belief aris-
ing from awareness, of Christ. The speaker’s call
for the dais in the second stanza is also logical; she
designs a beautiful place worthy for Jesus. Purple
may symbolize the coming of Christ, and the dais
could be construed as an altar. However, since Ros-
setti wrote many religious poems and did not ac-
tively acknowledge “A Birthday” among them,
Fairchild’s theory is no more widespread than is
Packer’s.
There may be yet another way to approach the
poem in light of Rossetti’s life. While “A Birth-
day” is obviously a love poem, whether to a par-
ticular subject or not, it may also refer to Rossetti’s
poetic art. That is, the poem may contain a subtext,
or secondary meaning, in which the poet takes the
opportunity to celebrate her joy of writing.
The images in the first stanza can be seen as
connected to the creative process. Writing a poem
is a private act, and one that gave Rossetti plea-
sure. The singing bird’s nest and the tree laden with
fruit may symbolize creation. The “rainbow shell”
may represent the beauty of a poetic idea. In the
last two lines of the stanza, the speaker says she is
glad because her “love is come,” which could be a
reference to the muse (her source of inspiration).
In the writing of a poem, the poet/speaker experi-
ences a simple happiness.
The images in the second stanza refer to artis-
tic creation, which relates to the creation of a poem.
They describe works of art drawn from living
things in nature a process not unlike Rossetti’s own.
Also, this stanza may be construed as a demand for
public acknowledgement, with its directive to build
a dais and decorate it so profusely. Rossetti was
torn between her ambition for fame as a poet and
her desire to be a modest, religious woman.
Here again is the tension found in her work as
a whole, and it is revealed in the slight change in
the structure of the last two lines. Line fifteen is
the only line in the poem that is enjambed; that is,
the reader must continue onto the next line to fin-
ish the sense of the phrase “Because the birthday
of my life.” All of the other lines in “A Birthday”A BirthdayHer song seems
determined to come out,
whether in the content or
the form of her poetry.”