4/14/09 Christina Rossetti continued.

Poems/discussion. Questions on final, schedule?

So far, we've been treating "Goblin Market" as a kind of Christian allegory about temptation and redemption. In this reading, the fruit is sin and the goblins are Satan; Laura is tempted by sin and succumbs to it. Lizzie is a kind of Christ figure who redeems Laura. After sinning, Laura can no longer hear the cry of the goblin men, although she still desires the fruit; I guess we took this to mean that sin is no longer pleasurable after the first indulgence, but we are tempted by it anyway because we remember the pleasure of the "first time." Laura is brought back to "life out of death" by "gorging on the bitterness" of the fruit when she eats it again. A conventional reading of this would say that Laura is redeemed by seeing the true nature of her sin, and understanding that it is bitter rather than sweet in the eyes of God, but we are not convinced that the traditional reading holds here: Laura doesn't choose not to sin, she simply eats the fruit as if succumbing to temptation again and finds it bitter.

There is more that we can do to read this in traditional Christian terms, but since we are already to the point where things aren't fitting neatly, let's open this up a bit to talk about other ways that the poems doesn't toe the traditional theological line.

• why is the Christ figure female? (Lily reference at line 409, i.e. Mary symbol, but still...)
• 464 ff. why is Lizzie's redemption of Laura so sensual?
• sexual imagery: note that the goblins try to force Lizzie (422 ff.); why does this sound like attempted rape? If this is sexual, then is the scene where Laura sucks the juices from Lizzie's face sexual? If so, how do we reconcile this with with Rossetti's devout Christianity?
• what does Rossetti mean by "sisterhood" at the end? Is the conclusion adequate to the tale, or is it, like the mariner's moral at the end of the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," somehow suspect by virtue of being too simple?
• If this is a poem about women, then who are Lizzie/Laura/the goblin men?
• a question we didn't answer before: why do the goblins want hair and not coins?
• At first, Lizzie protects herself by stopping her ears; to save her sister, however, she must go out into the world to listen and look. What does this imply?
• who is the hero(ine) of the poem? what sort of figure is she? what is implied about female protagonists in general?

Janet Camp Troxell cites a passage from Rossetti's Letter and Spirit in which "we get an idea of the compensation she expected to receive for [her various] renunciations: 'For the books we now forbear to read, we shall one day be endued of wisdom and knowledge, for the music we will not listen to, we shall join in the song of the redeemed. For the pictures from which we turn, we shall gaze unabashed on the Beatific Vision. For the companionship we shun, we shall be welcomed into angelic society, and the communion of triumphant saints. For the amusements we avoid, we shall keep the Supreme jubilee. For the pleasures we miss, we shall abide, and forever abide, in the rapture of heaven'" (Three Rossettis, 148).

In other words, it sounds like Rossetti thought in fairly ascetic terms about renunciation of the flesh. Why, then, is the poem so sensuous?

literary connections:

• The imagery in the poem is as rich as that in any in a poem by Keats, Tennyson, or Dante Gabriel.
• Laura pays for the fruit with a lock of her hair. If this is a Victorian female reply to Pope, what does it say?
• similarities to "Rime of the Ancient Mariner": supernatural elements, tale of redemption, ends with rejoining of community (families, in this case). If this is a reply to Coleridge, what does it say?
• inversion of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci": in both poems, a human has a kind of implied sexual union with a supernatural creature, but the genders are reversed. What would Rossetti say to Keats?
• connections with pre-Raphaelites: the goblins are brothers; fruit commonly appear in pre-Raphaelite paintings; the goblins invite the sisters to taste--which accords with the lush imagery of their works. If the goblins are male artists, what does the poem say about women and art?
• there are strong resonances in this poem with children's tales--the play of rhyme and meter, the fantastic setting. Why?