Goblin Market

"Goblin Market" (composed in April, 1859 and published in 1862) is a poem by Christina Rossetti. Throughout her lifetime, Rossetti claimed that the poem, which features remarkably sexual imagery [http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/victorian/authors/crossetti/flygare6.html] , 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

"Goblin Market" involves two close sisters, Laura and Lizzie, the goblin men to whom the title refers, and a character named Jeanie who is referenced but not physically present for any of the events in the text.

Laura and Lizzie are accustomed to gather water each evening near a stream. Each night they hear the calls from the Goblin merchants, who sell fruits in mystical abundance and variety. At the beginning of the poem, Laura lingers at the stream after her sister has left, and, having no coin, trades a lock of her hair for fruit, shedding a tear "more rare than pearl" as she does so.

After consuming the fruit in a sort of bacchic frenzy, she comes to her senses and, after picking up one of the seeds, returns home. Lizzie, "full of wise upbraidings", reminds her about Jeanie, who partook of the goblin men's fruits the year previous and died at the beginning of winter after a long period of withdrawal and deterioration. Laura fantasizes about her next encounter with the goblin men while she and Lizzie go about the routines of their work the next day. While near the stream waiting for the goblins in the evening, Laura discovers that Lizzie can hear the voices of the Goblins, although she herself cannot. Laura falls into a long period of physical deterioration and depression, during which time she does no household work as the winter approaches. She one day recalls the seed and plants it, but it bears nothing.

Lizzie observes in very late autumn that Laura seems to be on the verge of death and resolves to visit the goblin men to buy some of their fruits, which she believes will help soothe some of Laura's pain. Having brought coin currency with her, she is greeted by the goblins at the stream; their apparently friendly attitudes turn malicious, however, when she informs them that she wishes to pay with coin and to take their fruits with her. They then physically assault her in an unsuccessful attempt to make her consume the fruits, in the process coating her with fruit juice and pulp. Lizzie afterwards runs home and directs Laura to eat and drink these substances off her body. Having done so, Laura undergoes a transformation which initially seems to foretell her death. In the morning, however, Laura has returned to her old self physically and mentally, and, as the last stanza attests, both she and Lizzie live to tell their children of the evils of the goblin fruits – and the awesome powers of sisterly love.

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", and lines like "Lizzie uttered not a word;/ Would not open lip from lip/ Lest they should cram a mouthful in;/ But laughed in heart to feel the drip/ Of juice that syruped all her face,/ And lodged in dimples of her chin,/ And streaked her neck which quaked like curd."

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 Harrison's book "Christina Rossetti in Context", is copyrighted and can be found [http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/victorian/authors/crossetti/harrison2/4n32.html here] .] Other scholars – most notably Herbert Tucker – view the poem as a critique on the rise of advertising in precapitalist England, with the goblins utilising clever marketing tactics to seduce. Laura J. Hartman, among others, has pointed out the parallels between Laura's experience and the experience of drug addiction.

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 (grey/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 grey;::She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn::To swift decay, and burn::Her fire away.

References

*The poem: [http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/victorian/authors/crossetti/gobmarket.html]
*Critical material at "The Victorian Web": [http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/victorian/authors/crossetti/marketov.html]

External links

* [http://literalsystems.org/abooks/index.php/Audio-Book/GoblinMarket "Goblin Market"] Creative Commons audiobook.
* Audio book recording with accompanying text of [http://content.loudlit.org/audio/goblin/pages/01_01_goblin.htm Goblin Market]
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16950 Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems by Rossetti]