Hi everyone, this is Mr. Chandrapala and I'm really looking forward to working with you today.

We're now going to be analysing "Cousin Kate" by Christina Rossetti.

As I said to you in a previous video, this is one of my favourite poems in the collection because it explores in such great detail and a really interesting voice, the difficulties of the Victorian perception of women in a patriarchal society, and the negativity of those gendered expectations.

Let's dive in.

So for our outcome today we're going to explain how Rosetti uses language, form and structure to express her viewpoint.

(mouse clicking) So we're gonna start off by having a look at Rossetti's use of a language.

Our key words for today include the noun incredulity, which is being unable or unwilling to believe something.

So we're acting with disbelief.

The idea of the pastoral, which is a literature idealising rural life and nature, often contrasting with urban experiences.

The structural feature of anaphora, which is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of success of clauses or sentences.

The form dramatic monologue, which is a poem where a single character speaks to a silent audience revealing their thoughts.

And finally, the noun ballad, which is, again, a narrative poem, a form often set to music using simple language repetition and a regular rhyme scheme.

So we're gonna start off by having a look at Rossetti's use of language and focusing on her use of poetic methods.

I want you to have a look at the two definitions that I've got described below, so they are literary methods which are being described and I just want you to see if you can work out what they are.

Pause the video, have that discussion and when you're ready, hit play.

I could see a lot of hard thinking going on, some scrambling around looking at glossaries.

So questions asked for effect or to make a point, not requiring an answer are obviously rhetorical questions; whilst placing two or more elements side by side to highlight their contrast or differences is juxtaposition.

But can we find any examples of these methods in "Cousin Kate" by Christina Rosetti? Pause the video, I'm gonna suggest that one of you in your pairs looks at rhetorical questions or looks for examples of rhetorical questions, and the other one looks at juxtaposition.

If you're working by yourself, you may need to look for both but we'll then take some responses.

Pause the video, have a go at that and when you're ready, hit play.

Excellent work there everyone.

So in terms of rhetorical questions that we can find within the text, we can say that there's, "Why did a great Lord find me out and praise my flaxen hair? Why did a great Lord find me out to fill my heart with care? You sit in gold and sing, now which of us has tendered heart?" All of these are examples of rhetorical questions.

Whilst in terms of juxtaposition we have, "Woe's me for joy, shameless shameful life, his plaything and his love, chose you and cast me by," good and pure versus outcast thing in line 27 and 28, and, "I sit and howl you sit in gold in," line 29 and 30.

Now you'll have found very similar examples, you may have even found something else for juxtaposition.

I was thinking about my shame and my pride to describe the child, but what effects do these methods create? It's not enough just to be able to point them out, why does Rosetti use them? Pause the video, have that discussion with your partner, and when you are ready, hit play.

Excellent work there everyone.

So if we're thinking about the rhetorical questions we could say, "Well, these express the speaker's incredulity of the unfair expectations of Victorian gender." In the first question, she suggesting she was a victim of the Lord's affection and blames her beauty, whilst in the second and third she reveals her disbelief that her cousin could be so selfish to ignore her suffering.

Whilst if we were looking at the juxtaposition, you'll want a pen in your hand so that you can make notes for these as we're going through, she's contrasting the speaker's sense, the contrast emphasise the speaker's sense of conflict, which is both inner and interpersonal.

So in terms of the inner conflict we have that "Woe's me for joy, shameless shameful life, his plaything and his love," all demonstrating the self-perception she has and that confused nature.

Whilst the interpersonal conflict appears later in the poem, and that that's continuously done by comparing herself to Kate and considering the differences in their circumstances, leading to her envy and resentment.

So let's just have a quick check for understanding here.

Which of the quotations below is an example of juxtaposition? Is it A, "Now which of us has the tenderer heart?" B, "Shameless shameful life." C, "Come closer, closer yet." Or D, "O Lady Kate, my cousin Kate." Pause the video, select option A, B, C, or D, and when you're ready hit play.

Well done everyone, we can clearly see that it is option B, "Shameless shameful life." Those two words, shameless and shameful contrasting each other as part of that juxtaposition.

So we're just gonna practise putting this understanding of Rossetti's use of language together now.

Who do you think out of Laura and Aisha has the best response to exploring Rossetti's use of juxtaposition? Can you explain why? Pause the video, read through each, and when you are ready to- you may want to discuss this with your partner, one of you can argue for Laura, the other can argue for Aisha, or alternatively together you can discuss and choose which one you like, but either way you need to be able to explain why.

Once you've done so, hit play.

Excellent work there everyone.

So if we're having a look at these two responses, we would have to say that Laura's response led with key ideas, it's supported with evidence and it has detailed analysis of language.

We can see that because there's clear emphasis on those ideas in that topic sentence, the speaker has conflict of feelings about her affairs, but also there is still that language analysis by discussing the juxtaposition, which is the method, the "shameless shameful life" and then the effect of that.

Aisha's has a couple of EBIs, she leads with ideas.

Oh sorry, she leads more with feature spotting, starting off by focusing on the juxtaposition, and really we needed to focus on the ideas as Laura does.

She could improve her analysis here by linking it more to her initial topic sentence.

So we're now going to start having a look at Rossetti's use of form.

(mouse clicking) So when we're thinking about Rossetti's use of form, we need to remember that the poem takes the form of a dramatic monologue.

But quickly, let's just discuss what a dramatic monologue is.

So a dramatic monologue is a speech given by one character.

Other common features of this poetic form are that it often uses the first person's perspective, so I.

It has a silent audience and it provides a slow reveal of the character's or speaker's personality.

There are three main types of dramatic monologue; they are romantic, conversational or philosophical and psychological.

Can you complete the grid below, exploring how "Cousin Kate" uses the conventions of a dramatic monologue? I want you to use the table and find evidence from the poem.

You may want to work in small groups for this, so each of you takes a particular convention and then finds evidence from the poem.

We'll then all feedback together, so you can either feedback as a group first and then watch the video, and add to your tables, or just watch the video and add to your tables as doing so.

Pause the video, complete that table, and when you're ready, hit play.

Excellent work there everyone.

So in terms of the first person perspective, we noticed that it opens with, "I was a cottage maiden." And the silent audience is, "Cousin Kate, you who grew farer." So that is immediately made clear.

There is the slow reveal of the speaker's personality that, "I've got a gift you have not got." That sense of almost taunting cousin Kate, switching the idea that she has been jilted and left behind to actually suggest that she has more power.

And ultimately we would say that this is romantic.

It may not immediately seem so, but because the speaker is directly addressing a romantic rival, it makes sense for us to say that.

All of the conflict centres around their shared love for the nobleman.

So let's just have a quick check for understanding here.

I want you to fill in the missing words to complete the following sentences.

Pause the video, complete each of those four, and when you're ready hit play.

(plastic glass thudding) Excellent work there everyone.

So we know that it is the first person perspective, we know that it is a silent audience, we have the slow reveal of the speaker's personality and there are three main types of dramatic monologue, conversational, philosophical, psychological and romantic.

So in terms of Rossetti's use of form, we also need to consider that it is a ballad.

In terms of a ballad, we need to know that ballads are one of the oldest poetic forms, often sung or performed to music.

In terms of the common features of this poetic form, we know that it often involves narrative storytelling, simple language and vocabulary, repetition, particularly of particular lines or refrains, a regular rhyme scheme and focus on emotions and themes such as love, betrayal or tragedy.

Often ballads feature folk or traditional settings and characters.

Again, I want you to practise identifying the ballad conventions in "Cousin Kate" to complete the grid.

This time rather than working in a group, you're going to be doing this independently.

You only need to find one piece of evidence for each.

Once you've done so, hit play.

Some excellent work there everyone.

So here's how you could have completed the grid.

In terms of the narrative storytelling, it begins in the past tense and ends in the present tense, "I was a cottage maiden".

For the simple language and vocabulary we know that there are short, simple rhymes, "Kate", "I", "gate", "by".

All of that is held within line 17, we've got these really simple rhymes.

The repetition is clear in the play, but the anaphora, "Why did the great Lord.

." repeated in line five and line seven? "He saw.

He watched.

He lifted.

." in line 19, line 21 and line 23, all describing how the nobleman behaves around Kate.

In terms of the regular rhyme scheme we have the alternating lines of, sorry, rhymes of line 17 to 20, and there is a focus on all three, love, betrayal, and tragedy as shown by the quotes, "fill my heart, chose you and cast me by," and, "I sit and howl".

In terms of the folk and traditional settings and characters, we can see that there is a pastoral setting.

The fact that the narrator is a cottage maiden discusses the nobleman as a lord, and Kate played or was working among the rye.

Pause the video now, take any notes you need from this slide and when you're ready, hit play.

Excellent work there, everyone.

Really good to see you building on your own responses to develop them even further.

It'll really help you down the line.

We're now going to focus on Rossetti's use of structure.

Regular rhyme schemes are often one of the conventions of the ballad form.

In "Cousin Kate" Rossetti uses semi-regular rhyme, so let's look at how and why.

Below is the fifth stanza, "O cousin Kate, my love was true, your love was writ in sand: if he had fooled not me but you, if you stood where I stand, he'd not have won me with his love nor bought me with his hand; I would have spit into his face and not have taken his hand." I want you to pause the video now and find out what pattern of rhyme is used in this final stanza.

(mouse clicking) Some really thoughtful discussions there.

So we can see that we have that rhyme used over the course of the text.

True, you, sand, stand, Love, land, face, hand.

We can see that there are constant rhymes over the text, the ABABCBDB structure.

The two notable ones that fall out of sync are C and D, the love and the face.

But what is the effect of the rhyming pattern, which so often is actually quite alternate and keeps coming back to the B rhyme? Pause the Video, have that discussion, and when you're ready hit play.

Some excellent discussions there, everyone.

So the ABAB draws attention to the pairs of contrasting words in the first four lines, the true and the you suggest this instability of standing on sand.

(mouse clicking) Whilst the last four lines have the rhyme scheme, CBDB, there's the non rhyming words, love and face here, which emphasise her affection and anger.

It could also show that she's now falling outta rhythm, that sense that she is no longer preferred and therefore her anger, she no longer works in harmony with the nobleman.

Rossetti varies the rhyme scheme in other stanzas, but can you work out what they are? Stanza five has already been done, as we've done it together.

I'd like you to try and work stanza one, two, three, four and six out for yourselves.

If you want to your teacher can assign you each a stanza or you can independently work through each one.

Pause the video now and complete one of the tasks, and when you're ready, hit play.

Some really good work there, everyone.

So stanza one follows an ABCBDBDB structure, while stanza two is an ABCBDBEB structure.

Stanza three is an ABABCBAB structure, while stanza four is an ABCBDBEB structure, so very similar to stanza two.

Whilst stanza six is an ABCBDBEB structure, I challenged myself with that last one, to try and do it as quickly as possible, which is similar to stanza four and to stanza two.

So we can see that there is almost a similarity being repeated in the even standards.

So although this poem may use conventions of a ballad, which include occasional use of ABAB or ABCB rhyming patterns, Rosetti is playing with our expectations in the idea of conventional rhyme schemes here.

Arguably, her use of rhyming here emphasises particular words in each stanza.

So a quick check for understanding, true or false? When we discuss rhyming a poem we need to link it to the poems meaning.

Pause the video, select true or false, and when you're ready hit play.

Excellent work there, everyone.

We know that that is true, but can we justify it? Is it A because rhyme links words together by sound, which means we link the meanings in our mind.

Or B, rhyme lends poetry to a pleasing sound which is suitable for poems about emotions and feelings.

Select A or B, and when you're ready hit play.

Very good, everyone, it is of course a, rhyme links words together by sound, which means we link the meanings in our mind.

That is the critical thing here.

So let's practise that understanding.

I want you to discuss why do you think Rossetti may have chosen to vary the rhyme scheme? I want you to consider how rhymes link words and meanings together, how rhyme can reinforce the sense of contrast, how the feelings of the poem and the significance of the altering rhyme link.

Once you've done that, centering your discussion on those three things, hit play.

Excellent work there, everyone.

Let's take some feedback.

(mouse clicking) So our Oak students were asked these same questions and they responded with the following.

Izzy said, "Well, I think Rosetti varies the rhyme scheme to emphasise the differences between the speaker and Kate by implying, for example, that her love is the opposite of true, since the ABAB rhyme in stanza five draws attention to the contrasting pairs." Whilst Lucas argued, "Well, arguably Rosetti tries to draw attention to the speaker's un-womanly behaviour in standard five.

The CBDB rhyme draws attention to the penultimate line of the stanza, where the speaker says she would spit into the noble man's face.

This line where the speaker arguably challenges Victorian gender expectations stands out from the others." Pause the video now and in a different colour pen, add these notes about the rhyme scheme to your own notes in your anthology.

Once you've done so, hit play.

Excellent work there, everyone.

(mouse clicking) So let's just summarise our analysis of "Cousin Kate".

The poem takes the form of a dramatic monologue and it uses many elements of the traditional ballad conventions.

The rhyme is used to emphasise and link meanings in the poem, and there's clear use of juxtaposition which may be used to create tension over the course of the text, whilst rhetorical questions are used by Rossetti to convey confusion about the conflict women faced in society.

I hope you aren't in a position of conflict and uncertainty about your positions around "Cousin Kate".

Hopefully you think it's as great as I do, and I've really enjoyed working with you on it today.

Thank you so much for joining me, and I hope to see you again soon.

Bye for now, everyone.