More Goblin Market

Exploding with luscious imagery, Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market" basically contains both passages that convey narrative details — but nonetheless include visual information — and passages that vividly create the mood of a scene almost entirely by means of rich visual descriptions. The latter passages represent distinct pauses in the progression of the poem, allowing the reader to rest in a moment and absorb the details that the author describes. These portions provide appealing imagery presented in language that heightens its effect. Thus, as descriptions of objects tempt the mind's eye, similarly alluring language draws the reader in, increasing the momentum of the poem even as the narrative action has halted. After succumbing to the goblin brothers' fruit, Laura describes the pleasures of the forbidden delicacies to her sister Lizzie, who has resisted the temptation:

"Have done with sorrow;
I'll bring you plums to-morrow
Fresh on their mother twigs,
Cherries worth getting;
You cannot think what figs
My teeth have met in,
What melons icy-cold
Piled on a dish of gold
Too huge for me to hold,
What peaches with a velvet nap,
Pellucid grapes without one seed:
Odorous indeed must be the mead
Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink
With lilies at the brink,
And sugar-sweet their sap."

Long sentences with an almost staccato rhythm characterize this and other instances of Rossetti's intensely visual passages (for example, lines 5-31). This passage listing enticing fruits gains momentum in several ways. By dividing a single thought between two lines, Rossetti forces the reader to hurry voraciously to the next line. After the words "You cannot think what figs", which build suspense, excitement, and a sense of anticipation, Rossetti waits until the next line to provide the highly physical and literal satisfaction: "My teeth have met in." She employs this same method in lines 180-181. In addition, rhymes provide aural pleasure, entreating the reader to luxuriate in the rhythm and sounds of the poem. Furthermore, Rossetti's this passage and the other visual rest passages rely heavily on an appeal to the senses, containing captivating descriptions of colors, textures, aromas and tastes.


Interestingly, Dante Gabriel Rossetti's illustrations of his sister's poem do not highlight the lush images of fruit that would seem likely choices for representation. Although he gives the goblin's golden plate of fruit a prominent location in one of his illustrations, the fruit is only vaguely depicted, and the focus is instead on Laura's mournful action of sacrifice and submission to temptation set against a backdrop of goblins-animals with human limbs. His portrayal of the girls — clearly his main interest in the illustrations — departs slightly from how his sister describes them as well as from many of his other depictions of women. Christina Rossetti's language at the beginning of the poem evokes delicate, virginal young women: she describes them as maids and writes that when the girls walked near the goblins, "Laura bowed her head to hear, / Lizzie veiled her blushes" (lines 34-5). Later on in the poem, they together engage in domestic activities, including making "Cakes for dainty mouths to eat" (line 206). In both of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's illustrations, massive, muscular arms and broad shoulders take central positions in the composition. In the illustration accompanying lines 123-27, Laura has rolled up her sleeves before cutting her hair and kneels in a position emphasizing the thickness of her arms, the weight of her body, and the broadness of her shoulders. In the illustration to the title page, Lizzie holds Laura in a protective, comforting embrace, her left arm forming a massive barrier at the forefront of the image between the viewer and Laura. By contrast, many of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's female figures have slender arms (such as the Virgin in Ecce Ancilla Domini (1849-50)) and narrow shoulders (such as in Beatrice, a Portrait of Jane Morris (1879) and Lady Lilith).