44 Poetry for Students
A final question of the poem remains: of what
type of love is the narrator singing? Harrison, for
one, notes that “the poem is significantly ambigu-
ous in defining the nature (erotic or spiritual) of the
described love.” Deeply religious, Rossetti refused
two marriage proposals on the grounds that her suit-
ors did not share her beliefs. Certainly, the idea of
a rebirth, the “birthday of my life,” can indicate a
baptism, being spiritually born again. The precari-
ousness of the natural world, then, springs not from
the transience of erotic love, but from the transience
of human existence. The permanence suggested in
the artistic work that will enshrine her love is noth-
ing to the permanence of Christian love. The nar-
rator’s command to the unseen servants to “Raise
me” may, as Harrison suggests, refer to resurrec-
tion. In the promise of the next world, the narrator
can confidently believe in the immutability of love.
In the simple and sing-song-like “A Birthday,”
Rossetti raises profound questions about the nature
of love.
Source:Kimberly Lutz, in an essay for Poetry for Students,
Gale, 2001.Sources
Arsenau, Marie, Antony H. Harrison, and Lorraine Janzen
Kooistra, eds., The Culture of Christina Rossetti,Ohio Uni-
versity Press, 1999.
Deutsch, Babette, Poetry Handbook, A Dictionary of Terms,
Harper Collins, 1974.
Dombrowski, Theo, “Dualism in the Poetry of Christina
Rossetti,” in Victorian Poetry,Vol. 14, No. 1, Spring, 1976,
pp. 70-76.
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in
the Attic,Yale University Press, 1979.
Gosse, Edmund, Critical Kit-Kats,Scholarly Press, 1971,
pp. 135-62.
Harrison, Antony H., “Aestheticism and the Thematics of
Renunciation,” in his Christina Rossetti in Context,Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 1988, pp. 89-141.
Hinkson, Katherine, “The Poetry of Christina Rossetti,” in
The Bookman,Vol. 5, No. 27, December, 1893, pp. 78-79.Hollander, John, Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English
Verse,Yale University Press, 1981, p. 8.
Mayberry, Katherine J., Christina Rossetti and the Poetry
of Discovery,Louisiana State University Press, 1989, pp.
39-40.
Marsh, Jan, ed. Christina Rossetti: Poems and Prose,Every-
man, 1996.
Smulders, Sharon, Christina Rossetti Revisited,Twayne
Publishers, 1996.
Trilling, Lionel, and Harold Bloom,Victorian Prose and Po-
etry,Oxford University Press, 1973.
Woolf, Virginia, Fortnightly Review,Vol. LXXXI Old Se-
ries, p. 403.For Further Study
Arsenau, Marie, Antony H. Harrison, and Lorraine Janzen
Kooistra, eds., The Culture of Christina Rossetti,Ohio Uni-
versity Press, 1999.
Subtitled “Female Poetics and Victorian Contexts,”
this book collects essays based on the most recent
wave of Rossetti scholarship, beginning in the 1980s.
This work is necessarily feminist, and is a revision
of stereotypes of both the poet and her fellow Vic-
torians. Most interesting to readers of “A Birthday”
may be the final essay, “Dying to be a Poetess,” by
Margaret Linley, which describes some of Rossetti’s
conflicts as a woman and a poet in her time.
Marsh, Jan, ed., Christina Rossetti: Poems and Prose,
Everyman, 1996.
This volume contains a timeline and chronology of
Rossetti and her era, biographical information, se-
lected poetry, fiction, and excerpts from her nonfic-
tion and letters. Its notes and background material
provide a helpful overview for readers new to
Christina Rossetti.
Smulders, Sharon, Christina Rossetti Revisited,Twayne
Publishers, 1996.
As part of the Twayne English Author series,
Christina Rossetti Revisited is a critical study of the
poet’s life and works. LikeThe Culture of Christina
Rossetti,it offers a modern viewpoint of Rossetti’s
career in the Victorian period. Compare Smulder’s
chapter interpreting Rossetti’s famous Goblin Mar-
ketwith the essay “Tasting the Fruit Forbidden’ ” by
Catherine Maxwell in The Culture of Christina Ros-
setti.A Birthday