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Goblin Market and Other Poems
An important and often-quoted literary figure, the English poet Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) wrote some of the most beautiful and voluptuous poetry in the English language. Like Emily Dickinson, she lived in self-imposed isolation, writing of God and lost love with a sensuality and passion that seemed to emanate from the soul.
This edition of 53 works combines a number of her best-known sonnets, ballads, and shorter lyrics with her long masterpiece, the narrative fable Goblin Market . A haunting fairy tale in verse, Goblin Market was once labeled a children's poem, yet its intricate symbolism and themes of temptation, sin, and redemption mark it for an adult audience. Among other works included in this choice collection are "The Convent Threshold," "Up-hill," "Cousin Kate," " My Secret," "Maude Clare," "No, Thank You, John," and "After Death."
This edition of 53 works combines a number of her best-known sonnets, ballads, and shorter lyrics with her long masterpiece, the narrative fable Goblin Market . A haunting fairy tale in verse, Goblin Market was once labeled a children's poem, yet its intricate symbolism and themes of temptation, sin, and redemption mark it for an adult audience. Among other works included in this choice collection are "The Convent Threshold," "Up-hill," "Cousin Kate," " My Secret," "Maude Clare," "No, Thank You, John," and "After Death."
68 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1862
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About the author
Christina Rossetti
347 books569 followersChristina Georgina Rossetti, sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, wrote lyrical religious works and ballads, such as "Up-hill" (1861).
Frances Polidori Rossetti bore this most important women poet writing in nineteenth-century England to Gabriele Rossetti. Despite her fundamentally religious temperament, closer to that of her mother, this youngest member of a remarkable family of poets, artists, and critics inherited many of her artistic tendencies from her father.
Dante made seemingly quite attractive if not beautiful but somewhat idealized sketches of Christina as a teenager. In 1848, James Collinson, one of the minor pre-Raphaelite brethren, engaged her but reverted to Roman Catholicism and afterward ended the engagement.
When failing health and eyesight forced the professor into retirement in 1853, Christina and her mother started a day school, attempting to support the family, but after a year or so, gave it away. Thereafter, a recurring illness, diagnosed as sometimes angina and sometimes tuberculosis, interrupted a very retiring life that she led. From the early 1860s, she in love with Charles Cayley, but according to her brother William, refused to marry him because "she enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian." Milk-and-water Anglicanism was not to her taste. Lona Mosk Packer argues that her poems conceal a love for the painter William Bell Scott, but there is no other evidence for this theory, and the most respected scholar of the Pre-Raphaelite movement disputes the dates on which Packer thinks some of the more revealing poems were written.
All three Rossetti women, at first devout members of the evangelical branch of the Church of England, were drawn toward the Tractarians in the 1840s. They nevertheless retained their evangelical seriousness: Maria eventually became an Anglican nun, and Christina's religious scruples remind one of Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot's Middlemarch : as Eliot's heroine looked forward to giving up riding because she enjoyed it so much, so Christina gave up chess because she found she enjoyed winning; pasted paper strips over the antireligious parts of Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon (which allowed her to enjoy the poem very much); objected to nudity in painting, especially if the artist was a woman; and refused even to go see Wagner's Parsifal, because it celebrated a pagan mythology.
After rejecting Cayley in 1866, according one biographer, Christina (like many Victorian spinsters) lived vicariously in the lives of other people. Although pretty much a stay-at-home, her circle included her brothers' friends, like Whistler, Swinburne, F.M. Brown, and Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). She continued to write and in the 1870s to work for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. She was troubled physically by neuralgia and emotionally by Dante's breakdown in 1872. The last 12 years of her life, after his death in 1882, were quiet ones. She died of cancer.
Frances Polidori Rossetti bore this most important women poet writing in nineteenth-century England to Gabriele Rossetti. Despite her fundamentally religious temperament, closer to that of her mother, this youngest member of a remarkable family of poets, artists, and critics inherited many of her artistic tendencies from her father.
Dante made seemingly quite attractive if not beautiful but somewhat idealized sketches of Christina as a teenager. In 1848, James Collinson, one of the minor pre-Raphaelite brethren, engaged her but reverted to Roman Catholicism and afterward ended the engagement.
When failing health and eyesight forced the professor into retirement in 1853, Christina and her mother started a day school, attempting to support the family, but after a year or so, gave it away. Thereafter, a recurring illness, diagnosed as sometimes angina and sometimes tuberculosis, interrupted a very retiring life that she led. From the early 1860s, she in love with Charles Cayley, but according to her brother William, refused to marry him because "she enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian." Milk-and-water Anglicanism was not to her taste. Lona Mosk Packer argues that her poems conceal a love for the painter William Bell Scott, but there is no other evidence for this theory, and the most respected scholar of the Pre-Raphaelite movement disputes the dates on which Packer thinks some of the more revealing poems were written.
All three Rossetti women, at first devout members of the evangelical branch of the Church of England, were drawn toward the Tractarians in the 1840s. They nevertheless retained their evangelical seriousness: Maria eventually became an Anglican nun, and Christina's religious scruples remind one of Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot's Middlemarch : as Eliot's heroine looked forward to giving up riding because she enjoyed it so much, so Christina gave up chess because she found she enjoyed winning; pasted paper strips over the antireligious parts of Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon (which allowed her to enjoy the poem very much); objected to nudity in painting, especially if the artist was a woman; and refused even to go see Wagner's Parsifal, because it celebrated a pagan mythology.
After rejecting Cayley in 1866, according one biographer, Christina (like many Victorian spinsters) lived vicariously in the lives of other people. Although pretty much a stay-at-home, her circle included her brothers' friends, like Whistler, Swinburne, F.M. Brown, and Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). She continued to write and in the 1870s to work for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. She was troubled physically by neuralgia and emotionally by Dante's breakdown in 1872. The last 12 years of her life, after his death in 1882, were quiet ones. She died of cancer.
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October 16, 2025
The Goblin Market is one of the strangest poems I have ever read. Truth be told it reminds me of the current opioid/fentanyl addiction crisis we are facing right now: the 'tissue' hunger for something that is destroying you on a cellular level while sucking out your soul. While I am sure Christina Rossetti did not have that in mind it is on par with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in my opinion.
November 27, 2020
Goblin Market is a narrative poem written by Christina Rossetti in 1859, eventually being published in 1862, along with the rest of the poems in this collection. Goblin Market has been much argued over and there are numerous interpretations; the themes of temptation, salvation and sacrifice and the seemingly sexual imagery have ensured the debate will continue. The plot is simple; two sisters (Laura and Lizzie) live together (their age is never specified). They hear the call of the goblin merchants and are tempted by their wares:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
Laura yields to temptation and pays with a lock of hair and “a tear more rare than a pearl”. She then enjoys the fruit in a scene vaguely reminiscent of the food scene in the film of Tom Jones. She returns home satiated and soon desires more. However although her sister can still hear the call of the goblins, she cannot. Laura begins to pine and decline and is becoming weaker, dying. Lizzie, in desperation goes to the goblins to buy fruit for her sister. She means to pay with money and that angers the goblins with attempt to force the fruit into her. They cannot and Lizzie leaves covered in the juice and she gives some drops to Laura, who after an initial paroxysm recovers. There is a moral about the power of sisterly love!
The poem has waxed and waned in popularity, but the interpretations are worth listing: Marxist, Freudian, a warning about the free market economy, a tale about anorexia, an early feminist text, a Christian parable about sacrifice and salvation, a warning about the prevalence of food adulteration in the Victorian era (I kid you not), an exploration of incestuous yearning, “a parable of female resistance and solidarity” and inevitably an article in Playboy portrayed it as “unambiguously pornographic”. Some of the interpretations are more convincing than others!
The rest of the poems are very Victorian; a great deal about death, the beloved rotting away under a carpet of grass, plenty of lost loves and changing seasons, a good deal of religious nonsense and quite a lot about nature and the seasons.
One of the rescuers of Rossetti from obscurity was Virginia Woolf, who wrote about her on the one hundredth anniversary of her birth:
“Yours was a complex song. When you struck your harp many strings sounded together … A firm hand pruned your lines; a sharp ear tasted their music. Nothing soft, otiose, irrelevant cumbered your pages. In a word, you were an artist.”
She was also rediscovered by feminists in the 1970s.
I enjoyed Goblin Market and I recognise that it is open to a lot of variable interpretation. There is very definitely an intensity of delight in the material world;
“I'll bring you plums tomorrow
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”
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
Laura yields to temptation and pays with a lock of hair and “a tear more rare than a pearl”. She then enjoys the fruit in a scene vaguely reminiscent of the food scene in the film of Tom Jones. She returns home satiated and soon desires more. However although her sister can still hear the call of the goblins, she cannot. Laura begins to pine and decline and is becoming weaker, dying. Lizzie, in desperation goes to the goblins to buy fruit for her sister. She means to pay with money and that angers the goblins with attempt to force the fruit into her. They cannot and Lizzie leaves covered in the juice and she gives some drops to Laura, who after an initial paroxysm recovers. There is a moral about the power of sisterly love!
The poem has waxed and waned in popularity, but the interpretations are worth listing: Marxist, Freudian, a warning about the free market economy, a tale about anorexia, an early feminist text, a Christian parable about sacrifice and salvation, a warning about the prevalence of food adulteration in the Victorian era (I kid you not), an exploration of incestuous yearning, “a parable of female resistance and solidarity” and inevitably an article in Playboy portrayed it as “unambiguously pornographic”. Some of the interpretations are more convincing than others!
The rest of the poems are very Victorian; a great deal about death, the beloved rotting away under a carpet of grass, plenty of lost loves and changing seasons, a good deal of religious nonsense and quite a lot about nature and the seasons.
One of the rescuers of Rossetti from obscurity was Virginia Woolf, who wrote about her on the one hundredth anniversary of her birth:
“Yours was a complex song. When you struck your harp many strings sounded together … A firm hand pruned your lines; a sharp ear tasted their music. Nothing soft, otiose, irrelevant cumbered your pages. In a word, you were an artist.”
She was also rediscovered by feminists in the 1970s.
I enjoyed Goblin Market and I recognise that it is open to a lot of variable interpretation. There is very definitely an intensity of delight in the material world;
“I'll bring you plums tomorrow
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”
September 18, 2017
I've spent the weekend with Christina Rossetti, and I now feel a fire in my chest that is threatening to blast open my rib cage and send shards of bone flying in every direction.
I've also got a sob in my throat that I can't swallow down and won't let me sleep.
I just feel so damn sad and angry that we've spent more than one millennium telling women that if they follow their hearts and fall into the crazy chaotic chasm of carnal love before marriage. . . they will be soiled, sullied. . . ruined forever.
Women have been killed through the centuries for these impetuous, hormonal acts; in some parts of our world, it may have happened as recently as yesterday.
In Ms. Rossetti's part of the world, in the mid-nineteenth century, she wasn't killed, but she was relegated to invisibility, the backroom caregiver to elderly relatives.
Now, I'm no Rossetti expert, nor did I study her in my lit program. And I certainly don't have any proof of a name or a particular scenario, but it's obvious (at least to me, after reading her poetry) that Rossetti had been in love, had been denied this love, and then spent the rest of her life on this planet wishing she were dead.
This entire collection is filled with comparisons of the “spring” and the “autumn” of her life. A good, quick example:
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
Spring came too early, and the blossoms produced no fruit. The springtime of her life seemed very brief, the suffering of her autumn seemed to go on forever.
She writes, “Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet, To shut our eyes and die.”
And:
Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over,
Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,
Cold and white, out of sight of friend and lover,
Sleeping at last.
Good God, people.
I feel right now like I do when I watch the fantastic Anne Hathaway in Becoming Jane. I feel edgy and irritable, like I need to pace the room.
Because Christina Rossetti and Jane Austen both got a bum deal in the love and life department. And, friends, it makes me want to spit in someone's eye.
But, Ms. Rossetti writes, “Remember me when I am gone away,” and I want to shout out loud, “OH, YOU WILL BE REMEMBERED, SISTER, OH YES YOU WILL!!”
Immortality is the best revenge.
I've also got a sob in my throat that I can't swallow down and won't let me sleep.
I just feel so damn sad and angry that we've spent more than one millennium telling women that if they follow their hearts and fall into the crazy chaotic chasm of carnal love before marriage. . . they will be soiled, sullied. . . ruined forever.
Women have been killed through the centuries for these impetuous, hormonal acts; in some parts of our world, it may have happened as recently as yesterday.
In Ms. Rossetti's part of the world, in the mid-nineteenth century, she wasn't killed, but she was relegated to invisibility, the backroom caregiver to elderly relatives.
Now, I'm no Rossetti expert, nor did I study her in my lit program. And I certainly don't have any proof of a name or a particular scenario, but it's obvious (at least to me, after reading her poetry) that Rossetti had been in love, had been denied this love, and then spent the rest of her life on this planet wishing she were dead.
This entire collection is filled with comparisons of the “spring” and the “autumn” of her life. A good, quick example:
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
Spring came too early, and the blossoms produced no fruit. The springtime of her life seemed very brief, the suffering of her autumn seemed to go on forever.
She writes, “Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet, To shut our eyes and die.”
And:
Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over,
Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,
Cold and white, out of sight of friend and lover,
Sleeping at last.
Good God, people.
I feel right now like I do when I watch the fantastic Anne Hathaway in Becoming Jane. I feel edgy and irritable, like I need to pace the room.
Because Christina Rossetti and Jane Austen both got a bum deal in the love and life department. And, friends, it makes me want to spit in someone's eye.
But, Ms. Rossetti writes, “Remember me when I am gone away,” and I want to shout out loud, “OH, YOU WILL BE REMEMBERED, SISTER, OH YES YOU WILL!!”
Immortality is the best revenge.
October 29, 2023
A reread for me. Some truly wonderful poems in here.
April 2, 2026
Christina Rossetti's poem is a narrative type of poem in which different societal aspects are being implicitly pointed out and criticized.
She wrote “Goblin Market” in 1859 while doing volunteer work as an ‘Associate Sister’ at a Penitentiary for ‘fallen women’ in Highgate. These women were categorized as having transgressed Victorian sexual norms, which included having sexual intercourse before/outside of marriage as well as prostitution, and were thus seen as in need of undergoing a ‘reform’ or more specifically, a rehabilitation process. Such rehabilitations were performed at the Highgate institution which was claiming that the ‘women who had fallen’ could indeed be redeemed, for it was not the standard belief nor practice of the named epoch and only institutions like Highgate were the practitioners of such an approach. This period of Christina's life is thought by many to be her source of inspiration for writing the named poem. Various interpretational ways of this poem, which range from the Fall of Man to lesbian empowerment, will impose the motive and the hidden representation of a ‘fallen woman’ in Rossetti's “Goblin Market” as my focus.
The poem establishes several characteristics of rape on the content level and uses descriptive language to strengthen it. Suggestiveness of the used language is one of the key components utilized as an aid, as well as portrayal of aboundness of implicit metaphors and explicit allegory related to sexual violation. In the twentieth stanza, with verse 397 as a starting point, it is being implied that something ominous is about to happen rather quickly, since the goblin men's ‘looks were evil’. Further continuation with a gradually expanding and rather violent, destructive description of their reaction towards Lizzie's rejection of the offer to dine with them/eat their fruits, highlighted by the animalistic representational physical depiction of the goblin men, which by the last verse in this stanza reaches its climax leading to the act of oral rape:
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbow'd and jostled her,
Claw'd with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soil'd her stocking,
Twitch'd her hair out by the roots,
Stamp'd upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeez'd their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat. (397-407)
The poem does not have a specific rhyme structure, thus it is presented as very inconsistent. The portrayal of this particular stanza, with the intertwining of internal (‘hustled/jostled’, 399-400), end (‘mocking/stocking’, 402-403) and alternate (‘roots/feet/fruits/eat’, 404-407) rhymes, which in combination with consonance accelerate the motion of urgency and wrongness by the committed transgression. In the twenty-second stanza, the physical violence that the goblin men resolve to in order to make Lizzie eat their fruits reaches its peak, but even after all the violation she had gone through, she did not yield before her assaulters:
the goblins cuff'd and caught her,
Coax'd and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratch'd her, pinch'd her black as ink,
Kick'd and knock'd her,
Maul'd and mock'd her,
Lizzie utter'd not a word; (424-430)
In correlation to everything mentioned in the previous paragraph, yet another important aspect to point out is the freedom of voicing one's own thoughts and opinions, and the loss/absence of it. Important notice to bear in mind is the different depiction of Laura's and Lizzie's characters, which helps with the plot's development but also with supporting the statement made in the previous sentence. The very beginning of the second stanza, starting with verse thirty-two, presentation of the sisters' difference in characters has been shown: Laura's character has been portrayed as more curious, risk-taking and adventurous compared to Lizzie's timid, cautious and observant one:
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bow'd her head to hear,
Lizzie veil'd her blushes: (32-35)
Thus, since Laura had certain unwanted personality qualities for the epoch when this poem was written, the portrayal of consequences for her defiant character and behavior can be seen throughout the rest of the poem, starting with the sixth stanza. The crux of the already named stanza is exactly this: initiation of an implicit critique on how women in the Victorian period were expected to preferably behave and if this was not the case, the consequences for it. After giving a part of herself, that being a “precious golden lock” and eating the fruits from the goblin men, which could be an interpretation of clouding her mind through the eating of forbidden foods, Laura had undergone a drastic change, where her character became more obedient and tame. The chain of events which took action after she committed the noted misdeed did not only affect Lizzie's display of devotion, enhanced by the readiness to sacrifice herself if needed, but had left her physically and emotionally scarred till the very end of the poem.
Sequentially, this chain of events introduces a religious aspect to the poem, that being the Fall of Man, as yet another motive which further strengthens the claim on the focus of this analysis.
Rosetti does not only provide a link between sacred and sensual, but as well a symbolical and metaphorical description of the forbidden foods and its consummation as one of the main paradigms. In relation to the previous paragraphs this motive is the apex of their progression. The climax was reached when Laura ate the goblin men's fruits, resulting in a rapid deterioration of her health and absentness, which together represented her fall. A comparison is being made in ninth stanza, 210 being the starting verse, of the sisters' personas, where now the new distinction between them has been clearly presented. Lizzie is someone who did not eat goblin men's foods, thus being presented as someone who is warm, pure and living innocently, while Laura on the other hand has a darkness surrounding character, heightened by ‘absent’ and ‘sick in part’ as epithets prescribed to her:
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day's delight,
One longing for the night. (210-214)
The Fall of Man being chosen and presented as one of the key motives, besides its clear religious connotation, could as well be seen as a word play when compared to the already named central paradigm. Laura did not listen to her sister's warnings as Eve did not listen to God's and has, following her actions, consequently succumbed to the temptation and allure of the forbidden fruits, thus being seen and presented as a ‘fallen woman’. With further development of the story, this had aided Lizzie to acquire necessary courage to face the goblin men in order to save her sister from her downfall, regardless of an existing possibility of suffering the same consequences as her, referring to Christian redemption.
In conclusion, “Goblin Market” can be viewed as a critique on certain Victorian societal norms, which were essentially not only differently applied, but had held different weight of expectance from women and men in the named epoch. While the perspective on the presented critique can vary, I personally believe that this injustice was, besides her work at the Penitentiary, one additional reason as Christina Rossetti's main source of inspiration. This way, the content she wanted to transmit throughout this poem is thus directed to the female audience and population, trying to not only simultaneously convey a thoughtful message and a warning, but identify the unjust and exclusive censorship and incrimination with which named population had to live if found guilty of transgression of Victorian sexual norms. Unlike other Victorian authors, Rossetti allows the sisters from this poem to escape death or exile, the expected punishment for their crime, and allows them a positive outcome with no repercussions whatsoever.
This being the outcome, Christina stands firmly in her belief that an offence such as premarital intercourse/sexual intercourse as a whole concept is redeemable unlike the negative accepted norm by the broader masses in the 19th century.
Also, thanks for reading all of this and coming to my TED talk✨
She wrote “Goblin Market” in 1859 while doing volunteer work as an ‘Associate Sister’ at a Penitentiary for ‘fallen women’ in Highgate. These women were categorized as having transgressed Victorian sexual norms, which included having sexual intercourse before/outside of marriage as well as prostitution, and were thus seen as in need of undergoing a ‘reform’ or more specifically, a rehabilitation process. Such rehabilitations were performed at the Highgate institution which was claiming that the ‘women who had fallen’ could indeed be redeemed, for it was not the standard belief nor practice of the named epoch and only institutions like Highgate were the practitioners of such an approach. This period of Christina's life is thought by many to be her source of inspiration for writing the named poem. Various interpretational ways of this poem, which range from the Fall of Man to lesbian empowerment, will impose the motive and the hidden representation of a ‘fallen woman’ in Rossetti's “Goblin Market” as my focus.
The poem establishes several characteristics of rape on the content level and uses descriptive language to strengthen it. Suggestiveness of the used language is one of the key components utilized as an aid, as well as portrayal of aboundness of implicit metaphors and explicit allegory related to sexual violation. In the twentieth stanza, with verse 397 as a starting point, it is being implied that something ominous is about to happen rather quickly, since the goblin men's ‘looks were evil’. Further continuation with a gradually expanding and rather violent, destructive description of their reaction towards Lizzie's rejection of the offer to dine with them/eat their fruits, highlighted by the animalistic representational physical depiction of the goblin men, which by the last verse in this stanza reaches its climax leading to the act of oral rape:
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbow'd and jostled her,
Claw'd with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soil'd her stocking,
Twitch'd her hair out by the roots,
Stamp'd upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeez'd their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat. (397-407)
The poem does not have a specific rhyme structure, thus it is presented as very inconsistent. The portrayal of this particular stanza, with the intertwining of internal (‘hustled/jostled’, 399-400), end (‘mocking/stocking’, 402-403) and alternate (‘roots/feet/fruits/eat’, 404-407) rhymes, which in combination with consonance accelerate the motion of urgency and wrongness by the committed transgression. In the twenty-second stanza, the physical violence that the goblin men resolve to in order to make Lizzie eat their fruits reaches its peak, but even after all the violation she had gone through, she did not yield before her assaulters:
the goblins cuff'd and caught her,
Coax'd and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratch'd her, pinch'd her black as ink,
Kick'd and knock'd her,
Maul'd and mock'd her,
Lizzie utter'd not a word; (424-430)
In correlation to everything mentioned in the previous paragraph, yet another important aspect to point out is the freedom of voicing one's own thoughts and opinions, and the loss/absence of it. Important notice to bear in mind is the different depiction of Laura's and Lizzie's characters, which helps with the plot's development but also with supporting the statement made in the previous sentence. The very beginning of the second stanza, starting with verse thirty-two, presentation of the sisters' difference in characters has been shown: Laura's character has been portrayed as more curious, risk-taking and adventurous compared to Lizzie's timid, cautious and observant one:
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bow'd her head to hear,
Lizzie veil'd her blushes: (32-35)
Thus, since Laura had certain unwanted personality qualities for the epoch when this poem was written, the portrayal of consequences for her defiant character and behavior can be seen throughout the rest of the poem, starting with the sixth stanza. The crux of the already named stanza is exactly this: initiation of an implicit critique on how women in the Victorian period were expected to preferably behave and if this was not the case, the consequences for it. After giving a part of herself, that being a “precious golden lock” and eating the fruits from the goblin men, which could be an interpretation of clouding her mind through the eating of forbidden foods, Laura had undergone a drastic change, where her character became more obedient and tame. The chain of events which took action after she committed the noted misdeed did not only affect Lizzie's display of devotion, enhanced by the readiness to sacrifice herself if needed, but had left her physically and emotionally scarred till the very end of the poem.
Sequentially, this chain of events introduces a religious aspect to the poem, that being the Fall of Man, as yet another motive which further strengthens the claim on the focus of this analysis.
Rosetti does not only provide a link between sacred and sensual, but as well a symbolical and metaphorical description of the forbidden foods and its consummation as one of the main paradigms. In relation to the previous paragraphs this motive is the apex of their progression. The climax was reached when Laura ate the goblin men's fruits, resulting in a rapid deterioration of her health and absentness, which together represented her fall. A comparison is being made in ninth stanza, 210 being the starting verse, of the sisters' personas, where now the new distinction between them has been clearly presented. Lizzie is someone who did not eat goblin men's foods, thus being presented as someone who is warm, pure and living innocently, while Laura on the other hand has a darkness surrounding character, heightened by ‘absent’ and ‘sick in part’ as epithets prescribed to her:
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day's delight,
One longing for the night. (210-214)
The Fall of Man being chosen and presented as one of the key motives, besides its clear religious connotation, could as well be seen as a word play when compared to the already named central paradigm. Laura did not listen to her sister's warnings as Eve did not listen to God's and has, following her actions, consequently succumbed to the temptation and allure of the forbidden fruits, thus being seen and presented as a ‘fallen woman’. With further development of the story, this had aided Lizzie to acquire necessary courage to face the goblin men in order to save her sister from her downfall, regardless of an existing possibility of suffering the same consequences as her, referring to Christian redemption.
In conclusion, “Goblin Market” can be viewed as a critique on certain Victorian societal norms, which were essentially not only differently applied, but had held different weight of expectance from women and men in the named epoch. While the perspective on the presented critique can vary, I personally believe that this injustice was, besides her work at the Penitentiary, one additional reason as Christina Rossetti's main source of inspiration. This way, the content she wanted to transmit throughout this poem is thus directed to the female audience and population, trying to not only simultaneously convey a thoughtful message and a warning, but identify the unjust and exclusive censorship and incrimination with which named population had to live if found guilty of transgression of Victorian sexual norms. Unlike other Victorian authors, Rossetti allows the sisters from this poem to escape death or exile, the expected punishment for their crime, and allows them a positive outcome with no repercussions whatsoever.
This being the outcome, Christina stands firmly in her belief that an offence such as premarital intercourse/sexual intercourse as a whole concept is redeemable unlike the negative accepted norm by the broader masses in the 19th century.
Also, thanks for reading all of this and coming to my TED talk✨
August 12, 2016
Charming and elegant collection of poetry including the classic 'Goblin Market' which I would say is one of the best to be written from her era. It's always nice to delve back into poetic history where life was a million miles away from today's hectic world. A nice glass of wine, the flutter of birds in the trees and a gentle ripple across the water. Reading bliss!
September 29, 2024
"RECORDA.
Recorda-me quando eu te abandonar
Quando me for sob a terra silente;
Quando achares a minha mão ausente,
E eu, querendo partir, já não ficar.
Quando já não me puderes contar
Planos dum futuro que nos não cabe,
Recorda-me somente; tu bem sabes
Que então será tarde para rezar.
Mas se me esqueceres entrementes
E depois recordares, não lamentes:
Pois se a corrupção te assombrar os dias
Com ideias que eu tinha na cabeça,
Melhor será que esqueças e sorrias
Do que minha memória te entristeça.
REMEMBER.
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Página 70 e 71
Recorda-me quando eu te abandonar
Quando me for sob a terra silente;
Quando achares a minha mão ausente,
E eu, querendo partir, já não ficar.
Quando já não me puderes contar
Planos dum futuro que nos não cabe,
Recorda-me somente; tu bem sabes
Que então será tarde para rezar.
Mas se me esqueceres entrementes
E depois recordares, não lamentes:
Pois se a corrupção te assombrar os dias
Com ideias que eu tinha na cabeça,
Melhor será que esqueças e sorrias
Do que minha memória te entristeça.
REMEMBER.
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Página 70 e 71
December 20, 2024
I can see why the title poem is so loved. A few years ago I read an extract of it, and am glad I finally got around to reading the entire thing. Beautifully written, hypnotic, weird etc.
I enjoyed the other poems too. I would like to read a biography about Christina Rossetti, as the brief Google search I did was very interesting.
I enjoyed the other poems too. I would like to read a biography about Christina Rossetti, as the brief Google search I did was very interesting.
November 16, 2020
A classic amongst classics that has inspired many authors since its publication back in 1859.
This little book has the titular poem called Goblin Market about a girl giving in to temptation and her sister helping her to pay the price.
And yes, the reader has the option to read this piece in two different ways: the more "innocent" one where the young woman simply gives in to temptation, or the rather raunchy one where it is clear that she's having wild/abandoned sex before being married. Apparently, many read it as the latter (also because of some of the lines in the poem), so it caused quite the stir back in the day.
Rounding off the reading experience, there are around 60 other poems collected here and all of them ranged from nice to utterly enchanting. Granted, the titular one is the longest and most impressive, but Rossetti's style is generally fantastic (almost musical).
The themes of the poems usually revolve around magical realism and range from death/grief, devotion, important people in your lives (most notably usually sisters), nature at different times of the year to the nature of evil even.
A wonderful and important piece of literature, not least because the author was female and that was relatively unusual back then. For someone who was the foremost female poet of her time (granted, there weren't too many back then but still) and admired by the likes of Tennyson, it is a shame that this author is relatively obscure now, her name almost forgotten except for in certain circles. I can only hope this will change again.
This little book has the titular poem called Goblin Market about a girl giving in to temptation and her sister helping her to pay the price.
And yes, the reader has the option to read this piece in two different ways: the more "innocent" one where the young woman simply gives in to temptation, or the rather raunchy one where it is clear that she's having wild/abandoned sex before being married. Apparently, many read it as the latter (also because of some of the lines in the poem), so it caused quite the stir back in the day.
Rounding off the reading experience, there are around 60 other poems collected here and all of them ranged from nice to utterly enchanting. Granted, the titular one is the longest and most impressive, but Rossetti's style is generally fantastic (almost musical).
The themes of the poems usually revolve around magical realism and range from death/grief, devotion, important people in your lives (most notably usually sisters), nature at different times of the year to the nature of evil even.
A wonderful and important piece of literature, not least because the author was female and that was relatively unusual back then. For someone who was the foremost female poet of her time (granted, there weren't too many back then but still) and admired by the likes of Tennyson, it is a shame that this author is relatively obscure now, her name almost forgotten except for in certain circles. I can only hope this will change again.
January 3, 2026
I don’t care if Goblin Market is a religious allegory of Victorian womanhood, if it’s about sisters and they’re both married to men by the end, if it’s from 1862, or even if it was written for children (though that seems rather doubtful, despite its long history as a children’s poem)—Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market is queer as hell.
Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me,
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me
It’s also one of the greatest things I’ve ever read in my life—an indescribably magical experience of a poem, that is so obviously deeper and lovelier than any interpretation or exegesis could possibly capture. Nothing else in Goblin Market and other Poems is as captivating or obviously singular as the title poem, but the entire collection is well worth reading—full of whimsy, beauty, and surprise.
The second half of the book is given over to Christian “devotional pieces.” The short devotional poems barely held my interest, but two brilliant longer devotional poems at the very end of the book, “Sleep at Sea” and “From House to Home,” recaptured my imagination:
All caterpillars throve beneath my rule,
With snails and slugs in corners out of sight;
I never marred the curious sudden stool.
That perfects in a night.
The skittering childlike movement of Rossetti’s language and uncanny, hazy-sharp waking-dream quality of her imagery easily overwhelms these poems’ straightforwardly Christian intentions.
The spirits rise and go:
Clear stainless spirits
White as white as snow;
Pale spirits, wailing
For an overthrow.
Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me,
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me
It’s also one of the greatest things I’ve ever read in my life—an indescribably magical experience of a poem, that is so obviously deeper and lovelier than any interpretation or exegesis could possibly capture. Nothing else in Goblin Market and other Poems is as captivating or obviously singular as the title poem, but the entire collection is well worth reading—full of whimsy, beauty, and surprise.
The second half of the book is given over to Christian “devotional pieces.” The short devotional poems barely held my interest, but two brilliant longer devotional poems at the very end of the book, “Sleep at Sea” and “From House to Home,” recaptured my imagination:
All caterpillars throve beneath my rule,
With snails and slugs in corners out of sight;
I never marred the curious sudden stool.
That perfects in a night.
The skittering childlike movement of Rossetti’s language and uncanny, hazy-sharp waking-dream quality of her imagery easily overwhelms these poems’ straightforwardly Christian intentions.
The spirits rise and go:
Clear stainless spirits
White as white as snow;
Pale spirits, wailing
For an overthrow.
October 4, 2022
A lovely collection of the poems of Christina Rosetti beginning with the long, lush Goblin Market full of sexual imagery, temptation and ultimately the sisters survival. The other poems are often about longing and relationships, death or near death. Many made me smile despite the dark imagery, they are bold and so different from what you’d expect from a young woman in Victorian England. There is a section of ‘devotionals’ at the end of this collection but still death is a theme in some of these. There are also lovely original illustrations by Laurence Housman for Goblin Market and an introduction by Elizabeth Macneal in this edition.
September 27, 2017
These are such amazing poems! I don't know why Rossetti isn't more known!
November 4, 2024
An easy 5 stars, and that is coming from someone who finds it hard to get into poetry
August 6, 2016
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
April 30, 2018
In this edition, the first half of the collection is composed of (some) poems from the original Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862) and focuses predominantly on love and relationships. The second half contains poems from The Prince's Progress and Other Poems (1866), which takes a tonal shift focusing more on religion and death. While variable in content, the quality is consistently beautiful. Christina Rossetti is exceptionally good at expressing bitter sentiment with sweet prose.
The titular poem, "Goblin Market," is a stellar standout. It features a woman who falls to addiction, but is able to save herself with the help of another woman; this is a downright revolutionary take on the tale of the "fallen woman" for its time. I must have read this one poem at least a half dozen times, it was that enthralling.
This particular poem is also fascinating, in that it has since garnered a reputation for being "that super gay poem." It would be near impossible to dissect the mind of Christina Rossetti in regards to her personal feelings towards sexuality, especially as those constructs would be specific to her time. That said, I would still argue that "Goblin Market" could very well be a story of a romantic pairing in that the prose had many similarities to "Song of Songs" from The Bible (aka: the most sexual entry of the Old Testament), of all things.
Overall, this is a strong collection. Regardless of what prompts you to pick up a copy, I am confident that it will be well worth it.
The titular poem, "Goblin Market," is a stellar standout. It features a woman who falls to addiction, but is able to save herself with the help of another woman; this is a downright revolutionary take on the tale of the "fallen woman" for its time. I must have read this one poem at least a half dozen times, it was that enthralling.
This particular poem is also fascinating, in that it has since garnered a reputation for being "that super gay poem." It would be near impossible to dissect the mind of Christina Rossetti in regards to her personal feelings towards sexuality, especially as those constructs would be specific to her time. That said, I would still argue that "Goblin Market" could very well be a story of a romantic pairing in that the prose had many similarities to "Song of Songs" from The Bible (aka: the most sexual entry of the Old Testament), of all things.
Overall, this is a strong collection. Regardless of what prompts you to pick up a copy, I am confident that it will be well worth it.
October 21, 2016
ŞARKI
Ben ölünce sevdiğim,
Hüzünlü şarkılar söyleme ardımdan; Güller dikme baş ucuma,
Ya da koyu gölgeli bir servi ağacı:
Yeşil çimenler olsun üstümde
Yağmurlar ve çiyle ıslanan;
Ve istersen hatırla
İstersen unut.
Görmeyeceğim gölgeleri,
Hissetmeyeceğim yağmuru;
Şarkısını duymayacağım
Bülbülün sanki acıyla söylediği:
Ne çöken ne kalkan alacakaranlıkta Düşler görürken,
Bakarsın hatırlarım,
Bakarsın unuturum.
Christina Rossetti / Cin Pazarı ve Seçme Şiirler
Ben ölünce sevdiğim,
Hüzünlü şarkılar söyleme ardımdan; Güller dikme baş ucuma,
Ya da koyu gölgeli bir servi ağacı:
Yeşil çimenler olsun üstümde
Yağmurlar ve çiyle ıslanan;
Ve istersen hatırla
İstersen unut.
Görmeyeceğim gölgeleri,
Hissetmeyeceğim yağmuru;
Şarkısını duymayacağım
Bülbülün sanki acıyla söylediği:
Ne çöken ne kalkan alacakaranlıkta Düşler görürken,
Bakarsın hatırlarım,
Bakarsın unuturum.
Christina Rossetti / Cin Pazarı ve Seçme Şiirler
October 2, 2009
The trite of one sister with a fruity addiction
And the other's vicarious affliction.
Rossetti's lines are jagged,
Her rhymes often free;
She's like Doctor Seuss, without the PhD.
And the other's vicarious affliction.
Rossetti's lines are jagged,
Her rhymes often free;
She's like Doctor Seuss, without the PhD.
August 30, 2022
“but miles of barren sand,
with never a son or a daughter,
not a lily on the land,
or a lily on the water."
★★★★★
I found Rossetti's poetry earlier this year in a collection containing loads of different poets and totally fell in love. I was so nervous picking this up because until now I had never read a collection only by her and what if I ended up not liking my favorite poet? But I had literally nothing to fear because I loved every single second of it.
—
I would describe her poetry as pretty simple and easy to understand (as most of it was originally written for children) but still really beautiful. It's easy to get lost in. As a poety newbie this is exactly what I was looking for and this collection is great for someone trying to get into poetry but still wanting to read something classic.
—
My favorite poems in this collection are Winter Rain (obvi because it's literally my username) and No, Thank You, John. This is for completely different reasons. Winter Rain is in my mind more abstract and more of just a feeling. I like the place that it takes me when I'm reading it and I love trying to figure out what it means (there's very little to find about her and her poetry except for Goblin Market on the internet so it's basically all up to the reader). I love the rhymes and the flow.
No, Thank You, John I loved purely for the sass. She just seemed so ahead of her time with that one and I just love that she wrote a poem about a man that loved her (unrequited), expected too much just because she was a woman, got his heart broken and got angry. So slay of her calling him out like that.
—
The only part that I didn't really connect with was the "chapter" called Devotional Pieces but that's purely because I'm not religious. Don't get me wrong, the poems were still objectively good, I enjoyed them and even tabbed some but I just couldn't connect to them the same way I did the others and that's purely on me.
ig: winterrainreads
with never a son or a daughter,
not a lily on the land,
or a lily on the water."
★★★★★
I found Rossetti's poetry earlier this year in a collection containing loads of different poets and totally fell in love. I was so nervous picking this up because until now I had never read a collection only by her and what if I ended up not liking my favorite poet? But I had literally nothing to fear because I loved every single second of it.
—
I would describe her poetry as pretty simple and easy to understand (as most of it was originally written for children) but still really beautiful. It's easy to get lost in. As a poety newbie this is exactly what I was looking for and this collection is great for someone trying to get into poetry but still wanting to read something classic.
—
My favorite poems in this collection are Winter Rain (obvi because it's literally my username) and No, Thank You, John. This is for completely different reasons. Winter Rain is in my mind more abstract and more of just a feeling. I like the place that it takes me when I'm reading it and I love trying to figure out what it means (there's very little to find about her and her poetry except for Goblin Market on the internet so it's basically all up to the reader). I love the rhymes and the flow.
No, Thank You, John I loved purely for the sass. She just seemed so ahead of her time with that one and I just love that she wrote a poem about a man that loved her (unrequited), expected too much just because she was a woman, got his heart broken and got angry. So slay of her calling him out like that.
—
The only part that I didn't really connect with was the "chapter" called Devotional Pieces but that's purely because I'm not religious. Don't get me wrong, the poems were still objectively good, I enjoyed them and even tabbed some but I just couldn't connect to them the same way I did the others and that's purely on me.
ig: winterrainreads
Read
March 31, 2023Maður finnur fyrir þunglyndinu en inn á milli koma ljóð um hvað vorið er dásamlegt og skapléttandi og bjart og maður hugsar damn hún er alveg eins og ég ❤️
October 8, 2023
I really enjoyed ’Goblin market’ and a lot of other poems like ‘Echo’ and ‘No, thank you, John’, but not all. Especially the Devotional pieces at the end of the book… they’re just not for me.
—————————
Quote:
Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
‘Come buy, come buy’; —
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon 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.
(From: Goblin market)
—————————
Quote:
Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
‘Come buy, come buy’; —
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon 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.
(From: Goblin market)
October 19, 2008
I've never actually read any of Christina Rossetti's poetry before, as far as I know. Which is actually kind of sad, because I loved it. The imagery in the main poem, Goblin Market, was lovely, and the fairytale aspect of it, too. I liked a lot of the other poems in the volume as well. Makes me glad I got it this semester and had chance to enjoy it whole, before I have to pick it apart next semester!
February 3, 2021
Review coming up soon ! Well, this month, at least...
August 31, 2021
I know Christina Rossetti as the author of the Christmas carols "Love came down at Christmas" and "In the bleak midwinter" and this collection of her poems game more insight in her poetry and the range of topics she tackled. Well worth the effort.
December 13, 2023
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
goblin market is THE poem of all time and is a 10/10. however the god poems are zzzz
fave poems:
goblin market
winter rain
spring
a peal of bells
consider the lilies of the field
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
goblin market is THE poem of all time and is a 10/10. however the god poems are zzzz
fave poems:
goblin market
winter rain
spring
a peal of bells
consider the lilies of the field
July 15, 2025
waren viele banger dabei, goblin market wurde im Seminar komplett durchanalysiert und ich mochte das Gedicht unnormal (es war sooooo lepsisch ihr könnt es euch gar nicht vorstellen) und die kürzeren Gedichte mochte ich auch größtenteils, konnte nur mit den religiösen nicht viel anfangen aber vor allem "at home" ist mir irgendwie übels im Gedächtnis geblieben
June 4, 2019
When I was a little girl, I had a poetry anthology of classic poems for children, and there were a number of Christina Rossetti's poems in it. I think I must have been about six years old when I told my mum that Christina Rossetti was my favourite poet. Something about her work really struck me as a child, and I was absolutely enchanted. I still enjoy those same poems as an adult (I still have that poetry anthology), but it recently occurred to me that although I read a fair bit of poetry as an adult, I've never actually just read a collection of Rossetti's poems, and I realised that I needed to.
I remain enchanted by much of Rossetti's work, just as I was as a child. Her style is so lyrical that even when the subject doesn't interest me, she pulls me in with the language she uses. The titular poem is a delightful fantasy tale and ode to sisterhood, and her nature poems remain some of the best nature poems in classic lit in my opinion. The religious poems are where I start to shift away from complete enjoyment, but the language is still lovely.
Reading this brought back some lovely childhood memories and reminded me of why I fell in love with poetry in the first place. I enjoyed reading this a lot, and will be bookmarking it for future rereads. I know I'll be sharing these poems with the little ones in my life as well.
I remain enchanted by much of Rossetti's work, just as I was as a child. Her style is so lyrical that even when the subject doesn't interest me, she pulls me in with the language she uses. The titular poem is a delightful fantasy tale and ode to sisterhood, and her nature poems remain some of the best nature poems in classic lit in my opinion. The religious poems are where I start to shift away from complete enjoyment, but the language is still lovely.
Reading this brought back some lovely childhood memories and reminded me of why I fell in love with poetry in the first place. I enjoyed reading this a lot, and will be bookmarking it for future rereads. I know I'll be sharing these poems with the little ones in my life as well.
August 28, 2025
Christina Rossetti'yi tanıdığım için çok mutluyum. En önemli 19. yüzyıl İngiliz kadın şairlerinden biri olmasına rağmen ben daha önce hiç duymamıştım, o da benim eksikliğim. Uzun bir aradan sonra severek şiir okuyabildim. Kitaba adını veren Cin Pazarı şiiri kendi başına bir kısa roman gibiydi.
Ayrıca baştaki çevirmen notu da çok keyifli ve bilgilendiriciydi. Çevirmenin kendisi, kaynak ve hedef dil arasında nasıl çevireceği konusunda emin olamadığını söylemiş ve okurken hissettiriyordu gerçekten. Ben hedef dilin kültürüne bazı noktalarda fazla dahil olmuşken bazı noktalarda tamamen yabancılaşmasını biraz yadırgadım ama çok da önemli bir ayrıntı değildi.
"O bilinmeyen ıstıraptan tattı doyasıya:
Ne kadar da aptalcaydı seçmesi
Ruhunu yiyip bitiren o kederi."
"Yol yorgunu, bitkin varınca huzur bulur muyum orada?
Meşakkatten yana merak etme, bulacaksın yeterince.
Yeterli yatak olacak mı bana ve başkalarına?
Evet, bir yatak bulacak kim geldiyse."
Ayrıca baştaki çevirmen notu da çok keyifli ve bilgilendiriciydi. Çevirmenin kendisi, kaynak ve hedef dil arasında nasıl çevireceği konusunda emin olamadığını söylemiş ve okurken hissettiriyordu gerçekten. Ben hedef dilin kültürüne bazı noktalarda fazla dahil olmuşken bazı noktalarda tamamen yabancılaşmasını biraz yadırgadım ama çok da önemli bir ayrıntı değildi.
"O bilinmeyen ıstıraptan tattı doyasıya:
Ne kadar da aptalcaydı seçmesi
Ruhunu yiyip bitiren o kederi."
"Yol yorgunu, bitkin varınca huzur bulur muyum orada?
Meşakkatten yana merak etme, bulacaksın yeterince.
Yeterli yatak olacak mı bana ve başkalarına?
Evet, bir yatak bulacak kim geldiyse."
October 4, 2021
Goblin Market itself definitely held up to my memory of that poem from high school. The rest of the collection was less my jam. I mean, the themes were mostly all the same, but apparently, I prefer to be preached at when it's couched in creepy goblin metaphor.
February 20, 2022
There is something magical about reading poems written by a female poet so many years ago. Some were just wonderful. The Goblin market is a special one. Christina was the sister of a very famous Pre-Raphaelite painter.
I am glad that I got this poetry collection.
I am glad that I got this poetry collection.
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