r and her cousin. A young woman has been jilted by her lover, a "great lord". He seduced her when she was a “fair” and innocent low-born "cottage maiden". Having set her up as his mistress, in his
“palace home”
, he began to notice her
“
Cousin Kate
”
. Kate is
“good” and "pure" so the lord casts aside the narrator of the poem, and marries Kate instea d (“he bound *her+ with his ring”), after selfishly “chang*ing+ her like a glove” when she could have “been a dove”
(maintained her purity and innocence) The speaker is bitter because she has been betrayed by her cousin. She says that if their positions were reversed, she would not have acted like that – she “would have spit into his face” and “not have taken his hand”
. Finally she reveals her revenge: she has a
“fair
-haired son
”
by the
“
great lord
”, whereas her cousin Kate “ha*s+ not”. Cousin Kate is a poem about love, as well as the inequalities between men and women (as a result of the events within the poem, since the narrator is female she is branded an “outcast” while the male continues as normal) and the bitterness of being dumped.
FORM
: first person narrative VOICE: ambiguous NARRATIVE VOICE: jealous, sad, angry, happy, and betrayed. CONTENT: contrasting emotions help to place the reader into her situation that enables them to feel empathy towards. BALLAD FORM: song-like quality, softer tone created which increases feelings of sympathy towards narrators’ character.
STRUCTURE:
Title at the start suggests that the poem will be about Cousin Kate but we learn in stanza 3 that it is not – never hear the voice of Cousin Kate.
Interestingly: the “cottage maiden” is never named which reinforces her low status in comparison to her Cousin Kate. SIX VERSE, 8 LINE POEM: regular and strict structure reflects the growing pain and emotions that the narrator has endured may also mirror the restricted life she now leads. Regular rhythm = the narrator cannot escape her predicament
LANGUAGE:
use of questions reflecting on past events (unanswered). Strong use of verbs (“lured” “cast” “chose”) mirror how unfairly she feels she has been treated – placed her as victim; so reader again sympathises. Oxymoron – “my shame, my pride” reinforces ambi
-valence. Lack of direct sexual imagery:
“changed me like a glove” reinforces repressed. She’s been used and objectified. Single syllable words may reflect her anger towards the Lord.
FEMINISM
: poem focuses on the rivalry between females, rather than sisterhood. Although feminism was not in existence at the time in which Rossetti was writing, she demonstrates her forward thinking and focuses much of her poetry on the female self-identity - sexuality, morality and spirituality. Cousin Kate explores the feminist idea of female objectification and highlights how easily replaceable and disposable women were in the Victoria era. Rossetti shows that females were prised for their beauty, innocence and purity. Ironically, once these qualities were consumed and devoured by men, they were no longer of worth/value. In a market where females and their qualities were commodities, males dictated the price at which they were bought and sold In addition, within this poem Rossetti may have explored and criticised women for being condition to being materialistic – e.g. the “cottage maiden” was attracted to the “palace home” of the “great Lord”.
Moreover, women were not allowed freedom in the ways that men did: cottage maiden was branded as an
“outcast thing” by “the neighbours”. MARXISM
: Lord had upper hand due to his wealth and materialism – was able to use these “qualities” to be manipulative. The economy has provided the Lord with several strengths within this poem. Rossetti wrote her poems during the Victorian era where females were strongly oppressed, in particular for their sexuality. They were not granted the same freedoms as the male gender, as seen in
Cousin

Kate since the
“neighbours” brand the “cottage maiden” as an “outcast” and “unclean thing”
, whereas the
“great lord” is able to continue with his life despite the destruction he caused for the narrator. Women were expected to adopt traditional roles within society – e.g. get married, reproduce and care for the family home. In Cousin Kate, the narrator is not married yet she has a
“fair
- haired son”. Thus, she has not conformed to the expectations enforced by the Victorian society of time period. Although many of her poems have themes that suggest a concern with rights of women (including
Cousin Kate
), Rossetti was not interested in women’s suffrage (the campaign to get women the vote). However, she did demonstrate a clear sense of devotion towards women when she began volunteering at the St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in Highgate, a charitable institution for the recovery of “fallen“ women (1879).