40 Poetry for Students

are self-enclosed, or end at the close of a phrase or

sentence. Line sixteen is different from the other

lines in meter. While it is still iambic tetrameter,

there is a slight pause at the comma, so that the line

sounds a little different in rhythm from the rest of

the poem. The significance of this “glitch” in the

meter no accident for a poet of Rossetti’s skill

comes as the speaker announces the arrival of her

“birthday.” Perhaps Rossetti is saying to the world

that she is a poet, she has found her calling, and

means to stay with it for her life. And she does.

Source:Katrinka Moore, in an essay for Poetry for Stu-

dents,Gale, 2001.

Elizabeth Judd

Elizabeth Judd is a freelance writer and book

reviewer with an M.F.A. in English from the Uni-

versity of Michigan and a B.A. from Yale. In this

essay, she discusses the ways in which Rossetti uses

rhyme and rhythm to heighten and then complicate

the speaker’s emotions in “A Birthday.”

One of Rossetti’s best-known and most-often-

quoted love poems, “A Birthday” is, in subject mat-

ter and tone, a departure from most of her other

work. On the surface, “A Birthday” is a rhapsody

on found love, an ecstatic outpouring of joy from

a speaker who’s finally come to be born through

emotional fulfillment. Most of Rossetti’s other po-

ems are concerned with failed love, a morbid sense

of impending death, and a lover who will not or

cannot return the speaker’s feelings. “A Birthday”

is such an unexpected work from Rossetti—who

was known for her reserved, serious demeanor and

religious intensity—that its first line inspired a car-

toon by the writer and artist Max Beerbohm. In that

cartoon, Beerbohm depicts Christina Rossetti,

dressed all in black and wearing a large dark hat

that conceals most of her downturned face, being

questioned by her more flamboyant brother Dante

Gabriel Rossetti, who asks, “ ‘Well, Christina, your

heart may be like a singing bird, but why do you

dress like a pew-opener?’ ”

No matter how significant a departure the sub-

ject matter of “A Birthday” is, its meter and breath-

less, unforgettable rhythms arecharacteristic of

Rossetti’s poetry. “A Birthday” is a very carefully

constructed poem. It consists of two octaves, or

stanzas of eight lines each. The second and fourth

lines of each stanza rhyme, as do the sixth and

eighth lines. The poem is also written in iambs, or

two-syllable pairs where the second syllable is the

one on which the emphasis is placed. John Hol-

lander demonstrated how an iamb works in this line

from Rhyme’s Reason:“Iambic meter runs along

like this.” Often, as in Hollander’s example, iambs

have such a strong rhythm that they can propel the

poem forward in a rush of energy, a pattern that

perfectly suits the excited speaker in Rossetti’s

poem.

In the first octave of “A Birthday,” Rossetti

uses repetition to give the impression of someone

who’s frenzied and anxiously trying to find a sim-

A Birthday

What

Do I Read

Next?

• Sonnets from the Portuguese(1850) is Elizabeth
  Barrett Browning’s (1806–1861) most popular
  collection. She may have been a role model for,
  if not a direct influence on, Christina Rossetti’s
  career as a poet. When Rossetti’s first public
  book of verse was published around the time of
  Browning’s death, the younger poet was hailed
  as the logical successor to Browning.


• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland(1881) and
  Through the Looking Glass(1872) by Lewis
  Carroll (1832–1898). Fanciful as they are, the
  Alice books may shed light on a young person’s
  life in Victorian England. Carroll suggested in
  1892 that Christina Rossetti should succeed Al-
  fred, Lord Tennyson as Poet Laureate of Eng-
  land. Carroll, who was a photographer as well
  as a writer, photographed Rossetti and her
  brother Dante Gabriel in 1863. Like Carroll,
  Rossetti also wrote for children.


• Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was an American
  contemporary of Christina Rossetti. Rossetti ad-
  mired Dickinson’s work, which she first read in
  1890, citing its “startling recklessness of poetic
  ways and means.” Acts of Lightcontains se-
  lected Dickinson poems as well as an essay on
  her life in Amherst, Massachusetts.


• A younger poet who was influenced by
  Christina Rossetti was Gerard Manley Hopkins
  (1844–1889). Like Rossetti, Hopkins celebrated
  the physical and spiritual world. And like Ros-
  setti, Hopkins incorporated his religious beliefs
  in his mature poetry.