"Cousin Kate" is a mid-nineteenth-century poem by Christina Rossetti, in which a suffering woman tells the tale of her subjugation at the hands of a powerful lord and her betrayal by a cousin. Throughout the work, Rossetti plays with readers' trust in the speaker, at times suggesting that she is not an altogether reliable source of information—for instance, by revealing suddenly that she and the lord have had a child together. Rossetti also uses the poem's narrative to critique the gender politics of the Victorian era in which she lived and wrote, taking especially sharp aim at norms around sexual behavior. Furthermore, the poet heightens the stakes of the work by changing her speaker's addressee, such that some of the poem is addressed to an anonymous listener, other sections to Cousin Kate herself, and yet others to the speaker's child.
The poem plays into the ballad tradition in both form and content. Formally, it consists of eight-line stanzas, and follows an ABCB rhyme scheme. It alternates between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. It is set in a preindustrial, perhaps medieval society, allowing the narrative to feel similar to folk ballads passed down orally for centuries. This homage to folk ballads builds drama by ushering in mythical-seeming motifs, such as palaces and lords. At the same time, it universalizes and diffuses a sharp political commentary, removing it from a single identifiable time or place.
