Classic Contemporary Relevance part 2: Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market is another 19th century poem that similarly touches on perceived dangers of perverse seduction, but this time through layers of allegory and from a female writer's perspective. One of two sisters, Laura, eats the fruits of tempting goblin merchant men, and then falls into body-withering yearning for more that seems to have her at death's door. The other sister, Lizzie, then confronts the goblins but refuses to eat with them, resulting in her abuse and assault which she takes stoically and returns to her sister dripping with fruit juices, sharing them to seemingly 'cure' Laura.

   Rather than women being a richer man's thing to be lost to a zealous bachelor, this text focuses on the strength of sisterhood and warns of implied STDs and harmful obsession. A so-called piece of children's literature steeped in sexual imagery, Laura's deteriorating condition could easily be likened to either syphilis or chronic masturbation (both prime anxieties of the 19th century – the latter being then believed to cause dementia and death.) With sex and lust at the heart of so many conversations in young people's media today, this poem could serve as a caution to the excess of this fixation.

    Yet there are also apprehensions not likely intended which a modern reader may find here: Rossetti's was an era characterized by prudence and the warnings come from quite a religious angle, pertaining to adultery and pre-marital relations. A briefly mentioned woman named Jeanie “who for joys brides hope to have / fell sick and died” (314/315) prior to marriage, her death implied to be a result of premature indulgence. The goblin merchants' fruits could bare perturbing connotations of the Edenic Apple too. Pent-up sexual frustration's solution is therefore sought in religious devotion and love of Christ, rather than its exploration. Not exactly satisfying for a young, secular reader of today mired in temptations and desires, more likely to take advice from their over-boisterous friend than Jesus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx8Je9pFz7A


[originally submitted to Wordpress for grading on the 17th of May, 2020]

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