Little Black Classics Goblin Market

by Christina Rossetti

'She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth' A selection of Rossetti's most famous poems, from the hallucinatory 'Goblin Market' to 'In the bleak mid-winter' Introducing Little Black 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). Rossetti's The Complete Poems is available in Penguin Classics.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fantasy, Fiction, 19th Century, Victorian, Gothic

64 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1862

About the author

Christina 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.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

We’ve all heard the tales of the siren’s song leading men to their watery graves in pursuit of the mysterious attractive women, but what strange beast would lure a woman in such a fashion. For Christina Rossetti it would be *checks notes* little goblins selling fruit. So begins her epic poem, Goblin Market, from 1862 in which Rossetti weaves a tapestry of poetry to dissect the Victorian culture around women as a sort of fairy tale that could enchant both children and adults about two sisters who either answer or avoid the goblins call . The poem hones in on the idea of the “fallen” woman with a metaphorical context of sexual temptation leading to one of the two sisters besieged by death for her transgressions while also subverting the general attitudes of the time with her approach to salvation and sacrifice. A rather bold poem for its time with a unique flair of moralizing, Goblin Market is often considered the most famous of works from poet Christina Rossetti and still stands as a fascinating and poetically pleasing read to this day. But beware if some frumpy little men start to sing…

‘Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy’

Having recently read Toward Eternity by Anton Hur in which Rossetti’s work and this poem are integral to the story, I had to finally give it a read. I was pleased to find this rather lovely edition featuring illustrations by Georgie McAusland which really added to the reading like some sort of awesome illuminated manuscript. Check it out:

While Rossetti has initial success with her novella, she had difficulty with her works of poetry in larger publications. ‘Poetry is with me, not a mechanism, but an impulse and a reality,’ she wrote in a letter in 1854, ‘I know my aims in writing to be pure, and directed to that which is true and right.’ Still Goblin Market was initially rejected by critic John Ruskin, being deemed ‘so full of quaintnesses and offenses’ and advised she ‘should exercise herself in the severest commonplace of metre until she can write as the public like.’ Needless to say he did not pass it along for publication, though when it came out in 1862 it became an instant success. She considered it a children’s poem, though dark as it is, but also found childhood to be a very intense period of experience and that the poem matched such an era of life. Like fairy tales for children, Goblin Market does have a great deal of moral messaging and shows self-sacrifice as a virtue to highlight the bond between sisters which, for its time, was rather unique to exclude men beyond periphery threats to the well-being of women.

‘For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.’

Rossetti’s defense of the idea of the “fallen woman” as shown in the poem was part of her life outside literature as well. In 1859, Rossetti began volunteering at St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in Highgate, a church penitentiary with the aims of rehabilitation for women that have been sent away for alcoholism, sex work, or for being unhoused. Many of her works from this period focus on the idea of the “fallen woman,” though Goblin Market is the most notable. In this story of sisters Lizzie and Laura, the goblins serve as a symbol of sexual temptation from which Laura suffers for giving in to eating the forbidden fruit despite Lizzie’s warnings. ‘Their offers should not charm us, / Their evil gifts would harm us,’ she tells her, and speaks of a woman in the past who met her end from eating such fruits. Rossetti had strong christian beliefs with religious devotion being central to many of her works, which offers a plausible interpretation of the goblin fruit as a parallel to the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden. Lizzie as the savior through self-sacrifice offers an interpretation as a Christ figure, with a woman as Christ being rather unique for the time.

'Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing,
And ruined in my ruin'

It was her depiction of women in society that really made this work stand out for its time, particularly exposing the double standards against men and women and offering salvation for Laura. While the women wither away once they eat the forbidden fruit, it should be noted that the men (the goblins) are not judged nor face any consequences for actions. Lizzie’s act, however, is able to restore Laura, offering a hope that rehabilitation is possible and that the strength of women to uplift each other can overpower the patriarchal oppressions society imposes on them.

A long poem, yet still a fairly quick and engaging read, Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market remains a classic work. It has been interesting to see it alluded to or thematically relevant in several works I’ve read, most notably Seanan McGuire’s In an Absent Dream—the fourth in her Wayward Children series—in which a goblin market heavily based on Rossetti’s becomes the fantastical setting with extreme consequences from those who falter from their moral codes. I especially loved the illustrations in this edition and have quite enjoyed the experience.

4.5/5

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed some of Rossetti's shorter poems as I child (not that this is especially long), but was not familiar with this until I heard an extraordinary reading on BBC Radio 4 by Shirley Henderson. (There was an excerpt here, but it's no longer playable.)

It is a hypnotic poem about temptation, salivation, and salvation via sacrifice, told in contrasts: a sensible sister and a weak-willed one, getting gorgeous fruit from hideous goblins. It repeatedly combines religious and carnal imagery.

It can happily be read by or to a child, though as an adult, it's impossible to ignore the sensual allusions, starting on the very first page, with the goblins' tempting fare including “plump unpecked cherries”.

The whole story is dripping with the juice of ripe fruit, and the beguiling words of the hideous goblins trying to sell it.


Image: Arthur Rackham’s 1933 illustration is overtly sexual. The first illustrations were by Christina's brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but I prefer Rackham's. (Source)

This story is about the language and imagery more than the plot, but if you don't want spoilers, stop reading now.

Story

Laura and Lizzie are sisters who come across the goblin men in the forest. Lizzie is all-too-aware of the dangers (later, she reminds her sister of how Jeanie wasted away after she “ate their fruits and wore their flowers”), but Lizzie lingers. She has no money, so pays with a lock of her golden hair, which in a mythical world, is clearly dangerous. But she tastes their fruit, and is euphoric at the sensations:
“She suck’d until her lips were sore...
And knew not was it night or day.”

Lizzie gets home safely, but craves more goblin fruit. Next morning, “the first cock crowed his warning” (Biblical and phallic!). The sisters go about their chores as normal.
“At length slow evening came:
They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.”

Laura listens for the call, and is shocked to realise her pure sister can hear it, but she no longer can.
“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’.”

Just as her sister warned, Laura fades away:
“She dwindled, as the fair full moon does turn
To swift decay and burn
Her fire away”.

Yet every day, Lizzie is tormented by hearing the goblins' cry.
She “Long’d to buy the fruit to comfort her [Lizzie],
But fear’d to pay too dear.”
Nevertheless, eventually she takes a penny, and decides to get what her sister craves. Thus Lizzie has turned from tempted to temptress.

But instead of taking her money, the goblins assault her:
“Held her hands and squeezed their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat”.
She resits, but is covered in pulp and juice - which she then urges her sister to take:
“Eat me, drink me, love me”
Is that eucharistic or sexual?
“Shaking with anguish fear, and pain,
She [Laura] kiss’d and kiss’d her with a hungry mouth”.

This time the juice is more like poison to her, yet it is also purgative, and restores her. The power of the love of a pure sister is thus demonstrated, and handed down to their own children.


Image: A moral makes a wholesome ending, by Arthur Rackham (Source)

Contrasts

There is a stark contrast in revulsion at the goblins themselves and the irresistible appeal of their fruit: like drugs and indeed, Victorian attitudes to sex.

Of the goblins:
“One tramp’d at a rat's pace...
One like a wombat prowl’d obtuse and furry.”
When they sense a victim, their movements are hungry:
“Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing.”
They fear she might leave without succumbing:
“Grunting and snarling...
One call’d her proud,
Cross-grain’d, uncivil;
Their tones wax’d loud,
Their looks were evil…
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soil’d her stocking.”.

And, ah, the fruit:
“Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches...
Wild free-born cranberries…
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and suck them,
Pomegranates, figs.”

Who would not be tempted - are you Laura or Lizzie?


You can read the whole poem HERE.

[Sean Barrs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this was an interesting poem, and one that can be interpreted several ways. Personally, I took it as a suggestion that Victorian women should behave like ladies, and should resist the advance of men who only want them for sex. This makes the men wicked; thus, they were represented as Goblins. This effect was created through them trying to get the women to try their fruit at market, which was metaphorical for them trying to get women to taste their loins.

Morning and evening
Maids heard the Goblins cry,
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, Come buy.”



However, this is only one angle to look at the poem from; there are also religious undertones through the fact that one of the girls tries to redeem herself, and cleanse herself, after tasting some forbidden fruit. This is of course a suggestion that she has had her way with one of the Goblin men and regrets it. In addition to this, there are also elements of lesbianism though I am unsure what the purpose of this is. Is the poet trying to argue that women are better off together? Or is she trying to say that they should marry the Goblin men? Whichever way you look at it the sexual connotations are clear, and impossible to ignore.

Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from Goblin fruit for you.”



The result is a poem that is wonderfully dense in its actual meaning and is quite entertaining to read. Also in this edition are several other poems by the author, but none are quite as good as Goblin Market. I think this is a good collection from the author; it is one I am happy to of read and feel like I don’t need to read anymore of to get an idea of this poet’s style. After reading this I don’t need to buy anymore of her work because there is enough in here. This edition is one of the more price effective in the penguin little black classic collection that I’ve read so far.

Penguin Little Black Classic- 53



The Little Black Classic Collection by penguin looks like it contains lots of hidden gems. I couldn’t help it; they looked so good that I went and bought them all. I shall post a short review after reading each one. No doubt it will take me several months to get through all of them! Hopefully I will find some classic authors, from across the ages, that I may not have come across had I not bought this collection.

[Thibault Busschots · Rating 3 out of 5]

What am I doing reading a poem? Well, I was rewatching the brilliant Doctor Who episode Midnight, in which this popular poem was referenced. That was enough to spark my curiosity, so I wanted to check it out.


Two sisters hear the goblin merchants calling out, hoping to sell their fantastic fruits. The sisters know they are not allowed to taste the fruits, but one daring sister does so anyway.


The author is very talented and has an interesting way of words. It’s a seemingly rather innocent poem on the surface, but it deals with some dark and mature topics if you read between the lines.


I’ve read that there are multiple ways you can interpret this Victorian poem. The way I interpret it is: the goblins are men, or the wrong kind of men. One sister tastes the forbidden fruit. She faces heartbreak, as she can hear the goblin calls no longer even though she longs for their fruit. Luckily she has her sister’s unconditional love and support, which can help her get over it and move on with her life.

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who would ever have dared to guess that 'fruit talk' could be so very suggestive of so many varied things! Wow!

Q:
One had a cat’s face,
One whisk’d a tail,
One tramp’d at a rat’s pace,
One crawl’d like a snail, (c)
Q:
“Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen 145
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers 150
Pluck’d from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours? (c)
Q:
They lay down in their curtain’d bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fall’n snow,
Like two wands of ivory 190
Tipp’d with gold for awful3 kings.
Moon and stars gaz’d in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapp’d to and fro 195
Round their rest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Lock’d together in one nest. (c)
Q:
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands. (c)

[J.G. Keely · Rating 5 out of 5]

The intellectual critic is able to remove himself from this poem's pomophilic lesbianism and focus on an analysis of the many literary elements present. The lesser man simply counts himself lucky to find two such beautiful events in utopic cohabitation.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 5 out of 5]

She sucked and sucked and sucked the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She sucked until her lips were sore;

Well, yes, this can be read as a Victorian warning about 'evil foreigners', and possibly anti-Semitic; or about the perils of the burgeoning practices of advertising and marketing that were developing to support capitalism ('Morning and evening | maids heard the goblins cry: | "Come buy our orchard fruits, | come buy, come buy" ') - but, surely, only as adjuncts to the main themes of sexuality, temptation, innocence and experience?

Rossetti is almost shockingly visceral as lovely young Laura succumbs to the lures and eroticised enticements of the male goblins, paying with fragments of her own body to buy their forbidden fruit:

She clipped a precious golden lock,
She dropped a tear more rare than pearl.
Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red.

But perhaps the most libidinous and scandalous scenes involve Laura's sister, Lizzie: strong enough to resist the temptations of the goblins on her own behalf, she sacrifices herself in an uncomfortable scene that is quasi-rape as the goblins 'held her hands and squeezed their fruits | against her mouth to make her eat.' But Lizzie, her sister's redemption in her mind, 'But laughed in heart to feel the drip | of juice that syruped all her face, | and lodged in dimples of her chin, and streaked her neck which quaked like curd.'

Returning home to Laura who is fading away from the thwarted desire to suck those fruits again, Lizzie allows her sister to kiss off all that illicit juice from her own face: 'She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth' and - miraculously - drunk from Lizzie's virgin body, 'that juice was wormwood to her tongue' and Laura is cured, restored to youth and beauty.

Nevertheless, however much the poem strives to end with Victorian moralising, telling us that the sisters in later years 'were wives | with children of their own' and tell warning stories about 'the wicked quaint fruit-merchant men', we can't help feeling that this redemptive ending also contains within in an acute memory of the Bacchic frenzy into which Laura once fell (she still recalls 'their fruits like honey to the throat'), and the eroticised nature of Lizzy's rescue. Both experiences remain the climax of the poem and, perhaps, the women's lives and are set in stark contrast to the pale and homey vision of the ending.

Awash with Christian imagery from Eve tempted by the apple, to the sacrifice of Lizzie as redeemer whose entreaty that her sister 'eat me, drink me, love me' echoes communion, this remains open to far more subversive readings. Even the wayward form with disrupted rhyme schemes and metre point to something gloriously transgressive about this poem.

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who doesn't love a farmer's market? Stalls and tables groaning under the weight of produce so lush and delectable it bears no resemblance whatsoever to that crap they sell in the supermarkets.



But . . . if the market is run by goblins instead of farmers, you may be exchanging your soul for that yummy, perfectly ripe melon.

You can parse this poem for all the symbolism and hidden meanings you like; for me it is just a gorgeous, (unintentionally?) sexy, spooky tale of food and the supernatural.



A yummy combination!

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who would have thought such a spritely dance of a poem could be so LEWD?

I totally get why this would have become a sensation in 1859. It doesn't wax poetic about religion or morals, but it sure as hell tells of the underlying lust and anguish that sex brings. Socially as well as within.

To be clear, it never speaks directly of such, but reading it in any other way soon becomes a real chore and boring to boot. :)

So read away, my lovelies, but read it with a lusty heart.

[Gabrielle Dubois · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was Virginia Woolf who advised me to read this poem. Um, um, let me rephrase... more humbly! It was while re-reading A Room of One's Own that I saw mention the Goblin Market that this time I read.
I hadn't read anything about Christina Rossetti before. That poem struck me, overwhelmed me, moved me. Of course, the writing, the structure, is fabulous.
But above all, it's a story, written by a woman in the middle of the 19th century, whose two main characters are two young girls. With rhymes as rhythmic as a nursery rhyme, Rossetti exposes all the problems of his time. It should be remembered that the author worked as a volunteer for eleven years in a shelter for former prostitutes.
Fallen women, according to society. But rather women lost by that society. Used by young men to satisfy their needs before marriage, by old men to satisfy their needs during marriage. This fresh, inexhaustible, ever-renewed flesh ended up in misery, oblivion, abandonment, social decay.
What is interesting in this poem is that:

On the one hand, these two female characters are complex:

* Laura feels full of a physical sexual desire that she can't satisfy naturally in this 19th century Western society that only considers women when they are virgins or married - and rarely married for love. Hence the attraction of the Goblins, who are male characters. At first Laura hides from the Goblins; but is she afraid of them or afraid of herself, afraid of her own desire? Moreover, her condition as a simple girl of the people makes her desire for material goods that she will never be able to afford represented by the fruits sold by the Goblins, which are also a sexual symbol. Read, you will understand! Laura is curious about all this, about fruits that are not even to be found in the markets where she could go.
The author Christina Rossetti does not think that curiosity is a bad thing. For, let's put it in its time young men’s curiosity is encouraged, why should young girls’ curiosity be stifled?
As soon as she commits to the Goblins by cutting a curl from her hair, Lizzie feels she's making a mistake. She cries. She knows she chose a slippery slop but goes through with it anyway. If you can call choice the only two ways to live her life as a woman that society offers her. She has both pleasure and disgust. She is a female character very difficult to understand for a 19th century man. She is neither all black and white, neither angel nor devil.
As soon as she commits to the Goblins by cutting a curl from her hair, Lizzie feels she's making a mistake. She cries. She knows she chose a slippery slop but goes through with it anyway. If you can call choice the only two ways to live her life as a woman that society offers her. She has both pleasure and disgust. She is a female character very difficult to understand for a 19th century man. She is neither all black and white, neither angel nor devil.

* Lizzie - her sister, her friend, her girlfriend? (another suggested theme?) - is not a one-piece character either. At the beginning, we feel that she is both anxious to conform to a society that says not to frequent the Goblins, and fearful too. She is afraid that what happened to poor Jeanie will happen to her or Laura as well.
Then an incredible force will be born in her to save her friend Laura. She will face the Goblins. She will remain pure, not because they have not touched her, but because she has resisted them with all the strength of her heart and soul. Wounded, she will be, but not in her soul or her heart. She has something of a Jesus who gives himself up to save men. Lizzie faces alone, unarmed, a whole troop of goblins. She shows immense courage, great strength and above all a big heart, because she is not fighting for herself, for a land or for money, but for her friend, her sister. She wins nothing in the affair except to save Laura who has fallen into depression.
In this 19th century where stories are mostly told by men, where women are seen through the eys of men, this is not common: women's solidarity. Laura will not be saved by a man-warrior, will not be saved by a man-lover, but by a girl friend, a sister.
It is with this idea that the poem ends with the last eight verses, full of peace and hope for the future.

On the other hand, the male characters: the Goblins.

The least we can say is that they don't have the good part! They are tempting, evil, they have power, strength, material goods. They are devils and not merchants, as they would have you believe: they don't care that Laura doesn't have any money, as they only ask her for a curl of hair. All they want is her, her young body, her virginity. As for Lizzie, who has a silver coin and asks for fruits in exchange and only fruits, it makes them furious, they assault her, beat her, brutalize her and try to rape her.
Why couldn't Laura hear the goblins' call once they get her? Because they didn't want her anymore.

The goods in this story are not the fruits of the Goblins, they are the young girls. In 19th century Western society, they are the commodities. They are the ones that men pay for when they use them as prostitutes, they are the ones that men sell when they marry them. They are put on a stall, adorned with ribbons and frills, to please men whoever they are. And almost all of them endorse this system because it is the only one they know; because they have not had their eyes opened by a proper education to claim what they would like to be; because not everyone has the strength to stand alone against the society in which one lives because it can be dangerous, but also because one might be isolated. And it is something that can kill a human being because he is is a social animal.

In short, I admire this poem, this beautiful, profound, violent, poignant masterpiece which, fortunately, ends with a note full of hope that I will not quote for fear of spoiling your reading.

[Dannii Elle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goblin Market is one of the most, in turns, enchanting, horrifying, beautiful, and fantastical pieces I have ever read!

Goblin Market - 5/5 stars
Dream Land - 4.5/5 stars
Song - 5/5 stars
An End - 4.5/5 stars
A Pause of Thought - 3/5 stars
Sweet Death - 4/5 stars
A Birthday - 3/5 stars
Babylon the Great - 5/5 stars
On Keats - 5/5 stars
In an Artist’s Studio - 5/5 stars
The Queen of Hearts - 4.5/5 stars
A Christmas Carol - 5/5 stars
An Old-World Thicket - 3/5 stars
Spring Quiet - 3.5/5 stars
Up-Hill - 4/5 stars
Song - 4/5 stars
A Dirge - 5/5 stars
A Frog’s Fate - 5/5 stars
My Dream - 2.5/5 stars
Nursery Rhymes - 4.5/5 stars

[Sue K H · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 - This was a wonderfully creative poem that can be seen in different ways depending on the reader's state of mind. It's dark and creepy and loaded with sexual innuendo but at the same time, it's sweet and allegorical. I especially loved how it ended with the sisterhood aspect.

[Piyangie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goblin Market is an interesting poem that can have several interpretations. Though short, it expresses many social and religious views held strongly in Victorian England. Allegorical and symbolic, the poem is written as a fantastic adventure of two sisters, Laura and Lizzie.

Although this poem is capable of having a number of interpretations, I viewed this poem as one of temptation and sin, self-sacrifice and salvation. Laura is tempted by the "fruits" the Goblin men sell. The "fruit" is symbolic of male illicit sexual passion. The Goblin men coax Laura with their sweet words to buy their fruits, and Laura is caught in the temptation. After the first fill of her desire, she craves for more. Laura's craving for the fruits of Goblin men shows the awakening of feminine sexual desire. And allowing herself to be persuaded by Goblin men to taste the fruits, she surrenders her chastity and virtue. This is where her sister Lizzie comes to the rescue with her unconditional sisterly love. Lizzie remembers another girl Jeanie, who was similarly tempted and ruined then dies, and recalls that she didn't have a sister to the rescue. Lizzie's self-sacrifice is shown in her seeking out the Goblin men, withstanding their taunts, and succeeding in getting the "juice of the fruit". This helps to revive Laura from the terrible fate that awaited her. The poem ends with both sister's being married, so one can interpret Lizzie's action as one of seeking Laura's tempter and making him right the wrong by marrying her.

Victorian society was quite rigid on female chastity and virtue. Fallen women were the cast-offs of society and they were deemed undesirable for matrimony. Many thus women were therefore forced to live in seclusion. It is hard to say what inspired Christina Rossetti to write this poem, but it is said that she taught reading, writing, and sewing at an institution that housed such women. Perhaps, they inspired her to write the poem.

This, however, is my view of the poem. You could have a different one. And that's the beauty about it. In any case, this poem is a fine example of allegory.

[Liz Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was read for the #readwomen month.
I am so glad that I bought the complete poetry of this woman because, if what I read is any indication, she will soon become one of my favourite poets of all time. The main poem in this book is called "Goblin Market," it is about the men that only wanted women as objects and for sex, it depicted them as Goblins, as they tried to get the women to taste their fruit. It is also strong on the theme of redemption, as a woman has tasted the "fruit" and regrets it and tries to gain forgiveness, but not after desiring more in the beginning, until she feels disgusted by it. The other poem I loved was "Queen of Hearts." Is this a poem about the struggle among the matters of the heart? That is what I think, but it is poetry, and everyone will interpret it differently.
These are poems that can be read to children, and they will see magic inside them, while if we read them to them again as adults they will understand the poems were about sexuality as well. Perfect. Please read this short book, and then read all her other poems, because I bet they are just as brilliant.

[Janelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The lush and sensuous imagery in this poem seems decidedly un-Victorian! This edition with Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s paintings and an afterword by Joyce Carol Oates is quite beautiful.

[G.G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christina Rossetti wasn't on the school syllabus in the 1970s, nor the university syllabus in the 1980s either. I first read Rossetti in 1999, when friends asked me to read "A Birthday" at their wedding. The first and last lines:

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
[...]
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

This Penguin Little Black Classics edition provides a selection of Rossetti's work, including the funereal "Dream Land" ("Rest, rest, for evermore/Upon a mossy shore;/Rest, rest at the heart's core/Till time shall cease"); and the spookily wonderful "Goblin Market," which begins:

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges...
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,
Come buy, come buy.'

For a properly scholarly but still accessible account of the poem, complete with links to earlier editions and much else besides, see Dinah Roe's essay on the British Library website:
http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victor...

[Jayakrishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poem about awakening sexuality, sexual longing, the dark insidious side of sexuality and what seemed like incest.

Christina Rossetti said it was not a poem for children. I can understand why. It was so damn provocative and sexy for a poem from the Victorian era.

Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest,
Folded in each other’s wings,
They lay down in their curtained bed :
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fall’n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipped with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gazed in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapped to and fro
Round their nest :
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Locked together in one nest.

I read it for an English literature course I completed in 2013. I reread it today after I read another review on Goodreads. I remember I was intrigued by the poem when I first read it.

Laura stretch'd her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.

The poem even includes a scene of sexual molestation:

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.

Definitely not for children.

Yet it is full of scenes from the idyllic Victorian country life:

Early in the morning
When the first cock crowed his warning,
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie :

Fetched in honey, milked the cows,
Aired and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churned butter, whipped up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sewed ;
Talked as modest maidens should :
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.

At length slow evening came :
They went with pitchers to the reedy brook ;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.
They drew the gurgling water from its deep;
Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,

Then turning homewards said : “ The sun- set flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags ;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags,
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep.”
But Laura loitered still among the rushes
And said the bank was steep.

But sexual danger lurks in the form of the goblins:

When they reached where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother ;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One reared his plate ;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town) ;
One heaved the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her :

My god. The poem simply oozes sensuality and danger.

[Theo Logos · Rating 5 out of 5]

’You should not peep at goblin men’

Lush. Haunting. Sensuous. Goblin Market is all of that, and a mystery besides. What the Devil was Christina Rossetti saying with her dreamy and subversive verse amalgamating folklore, cautionary tale, Christian imagery, and strong, sexual innuendo?

The poem has a fairytale feel, with two young sisters as protagonist, but is obviously not meant for children (a fact Rossetti herself stated in a letter to her publisher). The goblin men are described as looking like the nightmarish, part animal demons out of a Bosch painting, but their voices are fair as they croon “Come buy, come buy” while hawking their tempting fruits. The sister who succumbs to temptation is struck down, seemingly doomed, as befitting a Victorian morality tale, yet is rescued and survives to look back on her adventure yielding to temptation with wistfulness, subverting the typical Victorian script.

This poem has been interpreted in ways as myriad as its interpreters. It’s been viewed as expressing feminist and homosexual politics, as a critique of capitalism, a metaphor for drug abuse, even as an anti-Semitic screed. (I guess that last one depends on viewing the goblin men as Jews, though I’m not sure how they got there.) Yet it is a tricksy poem, seemly purposefully ambiguous. Personally, I find any possible interpretation less interesting and significant than the fact that the poem is intrinsically mysterious and gorgeous.

[Nicholas Perez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hypnotic, fairy-tale of a poem, interwoven with religious and sexual imagery that plays, not off one another, but with each. Read it here.

Eat me, drink me, love me...

Laura and Lizzie are sisters who live along. Near the river where they wash their clothes is a market of goblin men offering sumptuous fruits. Lizzie says to stay away, but Laura cannot resist and exchanges a lock of her hair for the forbidden fruit. Laura begins to waste away so Lizzie confronts the goblin men to rescue her.

There are many interpretations of this poem, but its Sapphic (slightly incestuous) and religious imagery cannot be ignored. It is disturbing at some parts, which prevents me from making it a full five stars, but Christina Rossetti had a way with words and imagery.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Goblin Market" is a sensual narrative poem about two innocent sisters who are tempted with luscious fruit by the goblin men. There are many interpretations of this poem ranging from sexual temptation to the temptation of drugs.

There is also a religious interpretation with the goblin men representing the devil in the Garden of Eden, and the sister Laura representing Eve eating the forbidden fruit. Lizzie, a Christ-like figure, makes a sacrifice that leads to the redemption of Laura.

Christina Rossetti was a religious woman who worked with "fallen women" at the St Mary Magdalene Home. Her brother, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was the original illustrator for the book of poetry published in 1862.

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This poem was a ton of fun! I especially liked the part where the nubile young woman sucks nectar off her sister's neck. I was all, "Aw yeah! High five!" But I was alone, so I had to high five myself. It's less depressing than it sounds. No it's not.

It's a weird, wicked poem. The meter and rhyme scheme are schizophrenic; I tried to track it for a while, but you actually can't. Rosetti has no intention of being consistent. That adds to the creepy feel of the poem, as you're constantly off balance. I'm not sure what the goblin fruit represents. Addiction? Marriage? Lesbian incest? Definitely one of those things.

[☽•☾-Grimalkin-☽•☾ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christina Rossetti has to be one of the most depressing poets I have ever come across BUT this is not to say that I didn't enjoy her poems. On the contrary I found them to be really moving :)
Goblin Market itself was my favourite poem out of this collection and I can see why the Penguin chose to title the book after it. It is a story of addiction, bad descisions, courage and eventually redemption.
Other poems in the collection and very good but not (for me at least) as mentally (visually) poignant.
I will have to read more of her work!
3/5

[Kate♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5stars

i read this poem and absolutely ADORED it as a child - usually citing it as my favorite fairy tale/folk lore - and I liked it enough to write my own spin on the story. So, I figured it was best to reread it and I still absolutely adored it! Definitely not read enough by people, such a great poem and story

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) was an English poet during the Victorian age. She had this fondness to write poems about death. Examples of this are Remember that is her most famous poem and my mum's favorite, When I am Dead My Dearest.

But this long poem, Goblin Market is not about death. Rather it is about succumbing to temptation, repentance and social redemption. According to Wiki (link above), Rossetti was working as a volunteer in a charity house and her interactions with former prostitutes inspired her to write this poem. There are two excellent reviews here in Goodreads and they've said everything that I want to say about this long poem (that comes in a small colorful book) and one of them is from my brother, Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly. I did not know anything about the book so when I started reading I thought that it was some kind of poem for children with the goblins peddling the orchard fruits "come buy, come buy" to the public and the way they put them is words makes those fruits delectably luscious and sweet. So, I was not really surprised when one of the two sisters, Lizzie falls into temptation and so the other sister Laura is very concerned when the former goes back home after testing the fruits of the goblins.

I read this in one sitting (or lying in bed actually) today because it is Black Saturday and we normally don't go out in anticipation to the big celebration tomorrow being Easter Sunday. The poem is brilliantly constructed and fun to read. There are many thoughts, some of them dirty I admit, that came into my mind while reading but when I finally finished the poem, I thought about social redemption as the main theme. That we all commit mistakes and in the end as long as we learn from them and there is a support structure (family most especially), then we should be okay. As long as of course, we do not commit the same mistakes again.

Overall, nice knowing about Rossetti especially her short life story included in the book and the many blogs about her and her works.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this primarily because I’ve read a number of stories inspired by the Goblin Market poem by Christina Rossetti, (namely Lips Touch: Three Times, and more recently In an Absent Dream) and thought it about time I should look over the original text. The original poem is about sisterly love (not going to lie, there was also totally some sapphic undertones) and horrible goblin men who steal innocence and life through the purchase of their fruity wares. It was interesting, and definitely had potential to draw inspiration from.

From the other poem included in the collection, I enjoyed ‘Song’ - a poem about death, loss and forgetting that’s short but rather beautiful and ‘A Birthday’ - a sweet poem about love.

Poems really aren’t my thing at all, and this is a genre I would certainly define as ‘out of my comfort zone’ but these were pretty and interesting enough to pass an hour.

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christina Rossetti was a fascinating person and "Goblin Market" is a masterpiece I would recommend to everyone, even people who don't usually like poetry (find it here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...). My edition also includes a number of her shorter poems, most of which deal with her defining preoccupation: the conflict of wanting to be both a free, sexually liberated artist and a devout, chaste good daughter. Also, she's quite preoccupied with death—one of the original goths (see, e.g., "The Convent Threshold"). Besides "Goblin Market," my favorites were "Symbols," "Eve," and the ahead-of-its-time "In an Artist's Studio." Rossetti is in the public domain—check her out.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

"How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes.”

This was lovely and sensuous, and brought up fascinating thoughts about good and evil, temptation and restraint, facing the world alone or with a partner. But I think it's the kind of poem that is best when memorized, so you can recite it when you're tempted by
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries.

[Gloria Mundi · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a peculiar story this is. Laura and Lizzie are two sisters who go to fetch some water every day and on their way they hear the cries of the goblin men selling all manner of luscious exotic fruit:

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;—
All ripe together
In summer weather

Wise Lizzie keeps her head down and ignores the goblin men's cries of "Come buy, come buy" but Laura is fascinated. She hangs back one evening, buys some fruit with a golden curl and "a tear more rare than pearl" and then:

She suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She suck’d until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away
But gather’d up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turn’d home alone.

Lizzie, "full of wise upbraidings", waits at the house for her sister, and the next day when the two go to fetch the water in the evening, Laura realises that she can no longer see the goblin men or hear their cries. Laura turns sick with longing for more of the forbidden fruit and, when she appears to be at death's door, incorruptible Lizzie decides to brave the goblin men and heads out into the forest to buy some fruit for her sister. The goblin men are at first willing to sell fruit to Lizzie but when they realise that she wants to take it away and give it to someone else, they turn on her:

Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
Twitched her hair out by the roots,
Stamped upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeezed their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.

But virtuous Lizzie refuses to open her mouth so that even a drop of the fruit juice wouldn't trickle in and runs home, where she invites her sister to:

Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;

Whereupon Laura miraculously recovers and they both live happily ever after.

So, what on earth is this story all about? Is this an exploration on "feminine sexuality and its relation to Victorian social mores" (quoting Wiki here), is it an allegory of temptation and salvation, is it a cautionary tale about the dangers of pre-marital sex or addiction, a celebration of lesbian/sisterly love (choose as you will), a treatise against advertising? All of these, none of them?

Whatever it was, it was a lot of fun. And I disagree with those readers that say that this is definitely not for the children. I read this with my daughter (who is 10) and it is only as dirty as your mind makes it to be (although she did go ewww when Laura was licking the juice off of Lizzie).

We read one of the free versions of this poem available online but I didn't want us to miss out on the illustrations so we did a bit of googling and we looked at the many wonderful pictures that come up and stumbled across this version, which I think deserves a particular mention.

[Dhanaraj Rajan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a short book of just 55 pages.

But they contain some of Christina Rossetti's best poems (just 20 of them).

Though they are only 20, yet they are full of varieties (Long poems-short poems; allusions-direct poems; poems for adults-poems for children; on death-on birth; religious-secular).

Except for few, I loved all of them. I am to blame for the ones that did not appeal to me. May be in a later reading they would reveal themselves to me. I read almost all of them loud in my room and they are just charming. The echo really pulls you in. Try reading them loud if and when you read the poems. You will certainly appreciate me.

About poems: They are mostly about love, loss, and death. I can not say more than that. For I am a bad reviewer of poetry. The word fails me.

Advise for women: The title poem GOBLIN MARKET (one of the longest poems) is full of symbolism. And they are easy to grasp. I presume every woman will love to read that poem more than many times.

About other poems: They are just lovely. Some of my favourite ones are: Song (When I am dead, my dearest), Sweet Death, A Birthday, The Queen of Hearts, A Christmas Carol, Song (Two doves upon the selfsame branch), A Dirge.

Here is a sample.

SONG

Two doves upon the selfsame branch,
Two lilies on a single stem,
Two butterflies upon one flower; -
Oh happy they who look upon them!

Who look upon them hand in hand
Flushed in the rosy summer light;
Who look upon them hand in hand,
And never give a thought to night.

[leynes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm really trying to make #Victober work, you guys, but Victorians just wrote the shittiest poetry of them all. I honestly can't take this shit seriously, let alone enjoy it. Goblin Market is one of the worst and most meaningless poetry collections I've ever read, and that is saying something coming from a girl who read Milk and Honey.

The titular poem is structured like a narrative, it takes up half of the collection and tells the story of two sisters who are consecutively corrupted by men in the streets. It's a metaphor for how women should be careful (and better stay inside), so that they don't get lured in by sexual offerings of men. The entire narrative is just so fucking preachy, I cannot even. On top of that, the images that Rossetti tries to paint with her words are just disgusting. I know speaking about sex outright was a major red flag back in the day, but I really didn't need all of these descriptions of goblins sucking oranges and the juices trickling down their chins. No thank you.

At one point one of the sisters says to the other: Never mind my bruises / Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices, the sisters then proceed to make out. So on top of the weird sex talk, we add incestuous undertones to the mix and I am fucking out.

Btw, the word "crab-apple" is mentioned and I was like: [insert lil wayne meme here]