Goblin Market
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Goblin Market (composed in April, 1859 and published in 1862) is an important poem by Christina Rossetti. Throughout her lifetime, Rossetti claimed that the poem, which features remarkably sexual imagery, was a children's poem. When the poem appeared in her first volume of poetry, Goblin Market and Other Poems, it was illustrated by her brother, the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Plot
The main characters are two girls, Laura and Lizzie, who hear the goblins hawk their merchandise of exotic fruit each day. Laura is tempted by the fruit, while Lizzie warns her away, then runs from the goblins with her ears covered to avoid hearing their voices.
Laura purchases fruit from the goblins with a lock of her hair, then eats a great deal. The next day, she longs to buy more, and spends the afternoon in depressed anticipation. At evening, however, only Lizzie can hear the goblins. Laura grows sick and weak with longing for the goblin-fruit, until finally Lizzie takes pity on her and goes to buy more fruit from the goblins, bringing a silver penny to pay them.
When the goblins discover Lizzie refuses to eat any of the fruit and wants to bring it to someone else, they grow very angry and try to persuade her to eat. She resists them and returns home with the juice of the goblin fruits on her body, though she does not dare swallow. She allows Laura to kiss her and taste the juice from her skin; Laura is eager to do so, but soon finds that the juice burns like a fire in her blood. After Lizzie cares for her through a long night of sickness, however, Laura recovers and is her old self again.
Criticism
Since the 1970s, critics have tended to view "Goblin Market" as an expression of Rossetti's feminist (or proto-feminist) politics. Most critics agree that the poem is about feminine sexuality and its relation to Victorian social mores. In addition to its clear allusions to Adam and Eve, forbidden fruit, and temptation, there is much in the poem that seems overtly sexual, such as when Lizzie, going to buy fruit from the goblins, considers her dead friend Jeanie, "Who should have been a bride; / But who for joys brides hope to have / Fell sick and died". The poem's attitude toward this temptation seems ambiguous, since the happy ending offers the possibility of redemption for Laura, while typical Victorian portrayals of the 'fallen woman' ended in the fallen woman's death. It is worth noting that although the historical record is lacking, Rossetti apparently began working at Highgate Penitentiary for fallen women shortly after composing "Goblin Market" in the spring of 1859.
According to Antony Harrison of North Carolina State University, Jerome McGann reads the poem as a criticism of Victorian marriage markets and conveys "the need for an alternative social order". For Sandra Gilbert, the fruit represents Victorian women's exclusion from the world of art. (This material, which is quoted from his book 'Christina Rossetti in Context', is copyrighted and can be found [here]). Other scholars - most notably Herbert Tucker - view the poem as a critique on the rise of advertising in precapitalist England, with the goblins utilizing clever marketing tactics to seduce Laura.
From a technical standpoint, the poem uses an irregular rhyme scheme, often using couplets or abab rhymes, but also repeating some rhymes many times in succession, or allowing long gaps between a word and its partner. The meter is also irregular, typically (though not always) keeping four or five stresses per line. The lines below show the varied stress patterns, as well as an interior rhyme (gray/decay) picked up by the end-rhyme with 'away'. The initial line quoted here, 'bright', rhymes with 'night' a full seven lines earlier.
- :But when the moon waxed bright
- :Her hair grew thin and gray;
- :She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
- :To swift decay, and burn
- :Her fire away.
References
External links
- ["Goblin Market"] Creative Commons audiobook.
- [Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems by Rossetti]
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