Interpretations of Goblin Market

Working through this course will explore different interpretations of the poem, some of this is derived from Paul's booklet and some from Richard Gill's notes on Christina Rossetti, Selected Poems (Oxford Student Texts) Gill begins by asking: what do the goblins mean? Rossetti was resistant to any symbolic meaning. But the fact that she 'commented on it 'more than once' in William Rossetti's words suggests that even she couldn't let it go and indicates its meaning was a matter of debate. The first activity involves looking at a painting by Richard Dadd. Richard Dadd is a really interesting guy. In 1842, on a walk with his father Dadd stabbed his father to death and then fled to the Continent, with the intention of murdering the Emperor of Austria. After stabbing someone in France, he was returned to England, stood trial and spent the rest of his life in a lunatic asylum. In 1855, while in London's Bethlem Hospital (known colloquially as Bedlam), he began painting an astonishingly detailed picture called The Fairy-Teller's Masterstroke. This intricate picture took him nine years to complete. Meanwhile a few miles away, unknown to ether of them Rossetti was writing Goblin Market (finished in 1859, but published first in 1862). Look through the next four slides and see if you can make links between Dadd's painting and Rossetti's poem?    

This image is by the artist Richard Dadd who created it over nine years while an inmate in a lunatic asylum (London's Bethlem Hospital). it is called the 'Fairy Feller's Masterstroke'. You can find more details about the painting and the painter here: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dadd-the-fairy-fellers-master-stroke-t00598    

This is another detail from the painting, notice the fairy-feller in brown coat and cap, who stands before a hazel nut with a raised axe, as fairies of many kinds gaze on 'in trance-like immobility' (Victorian Fairy Painting, Royal Academy of Arts catalogue, 1997).  What links can you spot to Rossetti's poem? [Although they were creating their works at the same time there is no way they could have known what the other was doing.]

Is there something eastern, or slightly exotic about this kingly figure? And what about the Queen with the green, plant-like wings? What impression does she make?

What mood or feel do you get from this excerpt? For example are the goblins human or something else?

'Fairies appealed to Victorian imagination because they were tiny, intricate and delicate and in their nakedness they combined desirability and innocence. Christina Rossetti's goblins are provocative ... and yet, at least at first, they seem cheerful, playful and even child-like.' (Gill) Note the tiny naked figures dotted around this picture. This is already a zoomed in section of a much bigger picture.

One of the simplest interpretations of this poem is that it's just a fairy story or folk tale. Some of the key features of this are:   The goblins are convincingly traditional figures. They are shape-shifters, grotesque creatures and most importantly malicious.                     One had a cat's face,                   One whisked a tail,                   One tramped at a rat's pace,                   One crawled like a snail,                   One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,                   One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry.   Fairies are usually dark-haired but they delight in blond mortals “‘Buy from us with a golden curl.’/ She clipped a precious golden lock,/ She dropped a tear more rare than pearl” As at the end of Grimm's fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin, the goblins disappear as soon as they are defeated.                   Some writhed into the ground,                   Some dived into the brook                   With ring and ripple,                   Some scudded on the gale without a sound,                   Some vanished in the distance. Three more features of folklore in the poem are: The danger of peeping at fairies. The danger of eating fairy food. The rescue from fairyland. On the next slide please answer the quiz.   

A second interpretation of the poem is that it is about the market and Victorian capitalism.   One of the first sounds of the poem is the sound of the market:   'Morning and evening / Maids heard the goblins cry.'   Rossetti would have heard these cries walking through the streets of London this is the traditional cry of the street vendor.    The second aspect that would have echoed the experience of anyone walking through London streets is the sense of congestion, shouting and buffeting. This is the insistence of the market place - you have to buy and through seductive advertising, false desire is created:   Come buy, come buy: Our grapes fresh from the vine, Pomegranates full and fine, Dates and sharp bullaces, Rare pears and greengages, Damsons and bilberries, Taste them and try:   There is certainly something suspicious about the fruits being 'all ripe together' (l.15) because were fruits natural they would ripen at different times.   Perhaps the most interesting way to think about the market and capitalism is to see the poem being about the intersection of commerce and sex. The fact that Rossetti worked with 'Fallen Women' would have meant that she would have been aware of the thriving sex industry in the Victorian period:                     Rossetti wrote this poem in 1859 while volunteering at the St Mary Magdalene Penitentiary for ‘fallen women’ in Highgate. Dedicated                to the reform and rehabilitation of prostitutes, this Anglo-Catholic institution was remarkable in the period for its conviction that                women who had transgressed sexually could be redeemed. Biographers and critics have argued that the themes of temptation,                sexual exchange and sisterly redemption in this poem are influenced by its poet’s experience working as an ‘Associate Sister’ at                Highgate. (Roe, 2014)   For more details of this   This leads to the next view of the poem which sees it as a poem about sexual desire.

The readings of the poem which see it as focusing on sexual desire point to the following elements in the poem:   It is maids who hear the goblins cry. In the nineteenth century maids meant virgins. Does this suggest that their sexual inexperience makes them sensitive to the cries of the fruit-merchant men? In English writing food and particularly fruit is used in descriptions of sexual pleasure. Or, food is associated with various erogenous parts of the body. So 'Taste them and try' becomes an invitation to sexual excess. It's also traditional to talk of loss of virginity in terms of cutting off a lock of hair. This links to Alexander Pope's poem, Rape of the Lock (1712). This makes the negotiation between the goblin men and Laura as about a loss of sexual innocence. For Laura the incident has huge significance 'She dropped a tear more rare than pearl' (l.127) The most obvious link between sexual desire and eating fruit is the description of Laura gorging on the fruit in an excessive way. Pick out examples of her excessive indulgence and the sense of intoxicating (i.e. leaving her drunk) pleasure in the lines below:                   [she] sucked their fruit globes fair or red:                   Sweeter than honey from the rock,                   Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,                                                    Clearer than water flowed that juice;                   She never tasted such before,                   How should it cloy with length of use?                   She sucked and sucked and sucked the more                   Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;                   She sucked until her lips were sore;                   Then flung the emptied rinds away                   But gathered up one kernel stone,                   And knew not was it night or day                   As she turned home alone.  If the interpretation that this is about desire is correct, as a Victorian woman, she would know the consequences of giving into desire before marriage hence the heart-breaking  description of her sense of longing for this pleasure but being denied it as a fallen woman (crucially she can't hear the goblin men, she is no longer a 'maid')                   She said not one word in her heart's sore ache;                     gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept / As if her heart would break   Woven into the story of Laura and Lizzie is the example of Jeanie:                    ...