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A Birthday Rossettis joy during her birthday She describes her surroundings

Poet:

Unmarried Christian missionary Victorian poet Devoted her life to the Anglo-Catholic movement Refused 3 suitors

Title:

Her spiritual birthday (not day she was born)Structure:

2 octaves (each line has 8 syllables) 1ststanza- her feelings (sets the atmosphere)

describes herself 2nd stanza- her surroundings (brings us into the scene)

describes nature jumbled rhyme scheme (there are rhyming words but scattered)

Language:

Simile and Imagery:

They work together to form vivid pictures She uses these to express her happiness

heart is like a singing bird creates an image that her heart is filled with happiness and the birds are singing

the song of her feelings

heart is like an apple-tree/ Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit her heart has so much joy that it is as heavy, not with burden but with joy that she cant take in anymore joy, her heart will explode, symbolised by the tree

filled with fruit

My heartis like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea (halcyon-a period of time that was extremely happy) an upside down rainbow is a boat, which she sits in floating in the sea

Imagery:

Creates a royal atmosphere dais of silk and down Hang it with vair and purple dyes (vair-squirrel fur) colourful surroundings if you are happy everything around you is colourful and bright if you are sad everything is dull and gloomy purple is a royal colour, although she wasnt of royalty, she compared her elation

to the status of a queen (if shes sad she would feel like a homeless pauper) and a

dais is a seat of honour (eg. Throne)

grand, magnificent

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doves peacocks usually used for marriage ceremonies because it marks an important occasion gold and silver grapes silver fleurs-de-lys very fancy, adds on to the royalty effect

Symbols:

doves purity, peace, innocence, common like her, she was a missionary, honest etc. but doves also show love, she had 3

suitors but rejected all three perhaps she thought love was too common, so she

rejected them

in this poem she wants doves to be carved into the dais, decoration, peace pomegranates pomegranates are small round fruits with a hard shell inside are tiny little sacs filled with juice. The pomegranates symbolise multiplicity

which shows that she is rich, there is lots of doves, silk and peacocks royalty royalty is emphasised the peacocks with a hundred eyes the blue and green feathers and the spots on the tail are the eyes her guests are the eyes, the whole world is portrayed as the hundred eyes, the

whole world knows that she is in love

dais symbolises the platform in the church that she would go to, an alter, to offer her heart

to God

Tone:

descriptive happy, joyful, elated, blissful, light hearted, carefree, nothing else matters melodious, 8 syllables, in each line, 8 lines in each stanza, musical octaves

Theme:

birthday, it is not the day she was physically born but the day that she was spiritualborn, baptised maybe

fairy tale birthday