Category: Christina Rossetti

Animal-shaped goblin men, with their exotic fruits, in a mysterious jungle with two young maidens, all the elements you would expect of a fairytale in Christina Rosetti’s “The Goblin Market”. I’m not convinced that, that is all there is to this poem however, once you look under the surface. This tale of a curious girl named Laura who gets tempted into eating a fruit she wasn’t supposed to and is then saved by her courageous sister Lizzie sounds oddly familiar. The goblin market is a poem by Christina Rossetti a 19th century writer, centered around two young girls Lizzie and Laura who are sisters that come across a market of delicious fruits sold by the goblins there. Laura gets tempted and eats their fruit which she enjoys very much. As she longs for more of the creature’s fruits, she falls heavily sick. Lizzie faces serious danger and shows great determination in standing up to the goblins to save Laura from her illness. It works as Laura gets back to her previous self. Years later the girls married and with kids, teach them the value of true sisterhood. The story of “The Goblin Market” conveys a feminist and religious message with the themes of evil tempting goblin men, strong- savior like female protagonist and a redeemable fallen women.

In a feminist sense the goblins in “The Goblin Market” represent the men who deceive women and leave them. The article “Heroic Sisterhood in Goblin Market” by the English professor Dorothy Mermin that got her PhD from Harvard University, argues for the theme of sisterhood in “The Goblin Market” and Rosetti’s common theme of female redemption throughout her works. Marmin alludes that several of Rossetti’s works dealt with the topic of the “fallen women”, yet Rossetti tended to be sympathetic to the women, reserving her scorn for the men (Mermin 111). Although the setting of this poem might suggest a fairy tale type plot, the fact that Rossetti has a tendency of using the “fallen women” plot point, and demonizing the men gives credit to the goblins being deceitful men who seduced Laura in a sexual way. Furthermore, as the goblins in the poem are always referred to as men, which could only put their deceit in the sexual category, as there would be no other reason to make them all men contrasting two girls. Rossetti writes of Jeanie’s story

Ate their fruits and wore their flowers

Pluck’d from bowers

Where summer ripens at all hours?

But ever in the moonlight

She pined and pined away;

Sought them by night and day,

Found them no more but dwindled and grew grey; (Rossetti 150-156).

These lines clearly depict Jeanie as having some sort of either romantic or sexual relationship with the goblins. This also suggest that it was not a desirable relationship as the goblins were only using her and left her without notice, and that was what eventually led to her death. Rosetti’s message of not blaming the women who were deceived and going portraying the men as the villains is instead very progressive for the Victorian times.

In a religious sense the goblins in the market are likened to rodent like creatures, representing the serpent from Genesis that temped Eve into eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Rosetti’s description of the goblin men.

One had a cat’s face.

One wisk’d a tail,

One tramp’d at a rat’s pace,

One crawl’d like a snail,

One like a wombat prowl’d obtuse and furry,

One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry. (Rosetti 71-76).

These are the description given of the goblins, all likened to different animals, but animals that are similarly associated with sneakiness. A cat, a rat, a snail, a wombat and the last one is a honey badger are not very stereotypical for fairytale nice animals, instead it’s the opposite. These animals can be likened to the serpent that tricked Eve into eating the fruit, which is the exact same thing these tricky animals are planning to do to Laura. Their clear unpleasant appearance with Lizzie’s warning should have kept Lizzie away, but yet it didn’t. Instead after these lines we’re told that goblin’s voices sounded like doves, and full of love (Rossetti 77-79). Just like in Genesis where the serpents voice and reasoning convinced Eve to eat of the fruit, the goblins have some sort of power of persuasion on Laura through their voice. Their loving voice seems to have a strange grip on Laura that makes her not notice other suspicious and alarming qualities of the goblins.

Laura is a reminiscent of a prostitute that got excluded form society and yet was able to be redeemed back. Christina Rossetti worked in high gate throughout her life and saw it as her life’s mission to “rescue” fallen women and reintegrate them into society. Laura exchanging her hair for that of the fruit, as well as well as her strong reaction to the taste of the fruit in the poem suggests “that eating their fruit” is euphemism for sexual favors. Lizzie’s words after Laura’s back home, also supports this,

“Dear, you should not stay so late,

Twilight is not good for maidens;

Should not Loiter in the glen

In the haunts of goblin men. (Rossetti 143-146).

What Laura seems to mean by twilight not being good for maidens is that they might get sexually assaulted, which then she attributes to the goblins. Yet when she speaks about what happened to Jeanie, it wasn’t about her getting assaulted against her will, but only her choosing to eat of the goblin’s fruits and receive gifts from them (Rossetti 147-150). So, what Lizzie suggested through her warning to Laura, wasn’t assault by rather a willing sexual relationship with the goblins that leads to depression and isolation. These lines strongly suggest prostitution, that led to Jeanie being excluded from society so much that even daisies wouldn’t grow on her grave. But when she goes backs to her old self with Lizzie’s act of heroism, and gets married at the end of the story, it represents her redemption of her previous lifestyle that get’s her back into society. In the Victorian times prostitutes were seen as grave sinners, and had no chance of marriage with any one. Yet in her poem Rossetti does not really present Laura as a sinner who doesn’t deserve a family. She presents her as a young naïve girl who was tricked, and with a loving sister can end up happily married with children like everyone else, not sad, and depressed and alone.

The story of Laura eating the fruit of the goblins being a reminiscent of the story of Eve’s disobedience of God by eating the fruit of knowledge, shows the religious roots of the fallen women storyline. Several of Christina Rossetti’s biographies such as one in angliacanhistory.org talk about her religious devotion, that even led to her rejection of both of her suiters for having different faiths then her. Her biography shows her religious devotion, and as an author she’s someone who would have read the bible and viewed it at least in part as a literary work as well. Because of such devotion it is not at all unusual that she would incorporate stories from her faith to her own works as well. Besides that, the idea of the “fallen women” had been a subject of obsession of many literary works during the Victorian times, and Rossetti was not the exception. In the poem Laura startlingly askes Lizzie when she’s back from visiting the goblins, ““Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted /For my sake the fruit forbidden? /Must your light like mine be hidden” (Rossetti 478-480). The choice of words by Rossetti of “the fruit forbidden” reminds the readers of the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit instantly. Just like in genesis, Laura did what she wasn’t supposed to do as dictated by society and her sister, and so was punished for her disobedience. That is especially true, because Rossetti makes no attempts at explaining why the fruits are so harmful, or the motivation of the goblins. The objective isn’t to understand why the fruits have the effect that they do, or why the goblins are such deceiving creatures, just that we shouldn’t do what we know to be sinful.

Laura’s rescue of Lizzie serves as a strong feminist, and religious message. As Mary Wilson Carpenter argues for the savior like statues of Laura in her Article, ““Eat me, drink me, love me”: The Consumable Female Body in Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market”. Carpenter says that the lines of Eat me, drink me, and love me from the poem are very reminiscent of symbolically eating the flesh of Christ, and drinking his blood for redemption. This analysis of the lines seems very plausible, seeing how Christ is seen as someone redeeming the world from the “original sin” referring to the disobedience of Eve, represented by Laura’s action in the poem. Rossetti could have chosen these set of words in order to have a direct refence to Christianity, and associating her act to that of Christ himself. It’s undeniable thought that having a female savior directly associated with Christ is a feminist act, as most religious cleric’s in the 21 century would have a hard time accepting a female as a savior. Rossetti writes of Lizzie’s resolution, Kiss’d Laura, cross’d the heath with clumps of furze At twilight, halted by the brook: And for the first time in her life Begin to listen and look

Lizzie is not presented as a tomboy, or an overly courageous character that could take on any challenge set in her way, but rather the opposite. She’s shy, reluctant, and more proper of the two sisters, which makes her decision to go against the goblin at this part of the poem even more powerful. What makes Lizzie’s actions a real sacrifice, and a heroic act is her forgoing of her fears and even beliefs for the sake of someone she loves. Lizzie has no experience in the market as the last lines in the quote shows, and through what she knows of Jeanie and Laura’s experience she also has no delusion of success in the market. Due to all of her disadvantages, and the disadvantages associated with girls as a whole in the Victorian times Lizzie being the hero of this poem is a very powerful feminist statement.

Another interpretation of Rossetti’s “The Goblin Market” is the socio-historical perspective, that sees the main objective of the poem as a way of understanding women’s place in the marketplace with rapid increase of capitalism. This perspective sees the goblins as merchants, and the girls Laura and Lizzie as inexperienced female consumers trying to find their place in the market. Although I don’t see this argument as the main point of the poem, I will concede that there is a lot of evidence in the poem that supports this argument as well. Rossetti writes of Lizzie on her way back home

Threaded corpse and dingle,

And heard her penny jingle

Bouncing in her purse, —

Its bounce was music to her ear. (Rossetti 451-454).

These lines in the poem suggests that Lizzie’s victory with the goblins was an economical one, that compensated Laura’s previous failure. Since these lines give so much significance to the coin purse Lizzie was carrying, it’s hard to argue that Lizzie’s act has no socio-historical significance. However, I tend to view Lizzie’s excitement about the coins as her surreal survival of the goblins without having lost anything of hers to the evil goblins. And the sound of their jingle is evidence of her victory rather than placing value on them monetarily.

In conclusion, Christina Rossetti’s “The Goblin Market” incorporates her Christian and feminist views, and in a certain extend merges them together to fully express her ideals in a very fantasy setting. Laura’s sickness from testing the “fruit forbidden” is representative of the “fallen women” that have illicit sexual experience out of the wedlock, which then makes them outcasts in society. This and getting saved by Laura in a Christ like sacrificial manner are references to her religious background, the greater ideas of “original sin”, by the original human’s eating of the tree of knowledge, and redemption from that sin through the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Yet Rossetti’s ultimate message is that these so called “fallen women” are redeemable, and does not put the blame on the women, but rather the men that tempt and use women in such a way. Along with her strong belief in sisterhood, and women helping women reincorporate into society this poem could be considered a feminist poem as well. The idea of prostitutes having any value as human beings wasn’t widely held belief during the Victorian times.

Explore how one of the stereotypes we have studied on this course (e.g. the fallen woman, or the self-made man) is represented in one or more texts.

Fallen Women is a Victorian concept to address women who had sex outside of marriage. It was considered an immoral act because women were taught that giving in for their sexual desires was a sign of weakness, and only those who were strong enough to repress them could create a good morally influenced household. Women who challenged this mentality by engaging in sexual relationships or working as prostitutes were considered a threat and excluded from society. These two were closely linked, since many times, sexually active girls would get pregnant and after been repudiated by their families and forced to survive by themselves, they were obliged to become prostitutes- the only possible way for a woman in the Victorian period to obtain money. Thanks to the reports of the Foundling Hospital, an institution that took care of out of marriage babies, it is known that the most frequent cause of these pregnancies was rape and assault; women who had been drugged, raped and later abandoned by the father.[footnoteRef:0] This essay explores the stereotype of Fallen Woman in Victorian poetry and how it is represented in the poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Jenny[footnoteRef:1], Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market[footnoteRef:2] and Augusta Webster’s A Castaway[footnoteRef:3]. Firstly, it discusses the representation of Jenny, a Fallen Woman who by representing her as a lovable woman is given a broader identity than of a prostitute. Secondly, it examines the victim role of Goblin Market’s Fallen Woman through the manipulative nature of the goblins and Laura’s final redemption. Lastly, it analyses the strong and assertive Fallen Woman of A Castaway through the feminist monologue of Eulalie which denounces patriarchy as the root of prostitution, to finally argue, that the Fallen Woman, overall, is depicted as the consequence of not only the woman’s decisions but also of the society who pushes and engages with it. [0: ] [1: ] [2: ] [3: ]

In Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Jenni, the Fallen Woman is portrayed just as a profession, not as the whole identity of the woman. The narrator is one of the characters and his monologue occupies the whole story. In his monologue, he gives a broad depiction of Jenni and her life which makes Jenny a complex character in the eyes of the reader. This facilitates the understanding of Jenny’s circumstances instead of straightforwardly judging her for working as a prostitute. The mention of Jenny’s dreams and childhood are key to make her character more complex. The speaker is trying to tap into her unconsciousness by trying to interpret her dream of living a life of economic abundance: ‘Perhaps the subject of your dreams, / These golden coins’ (lines 341-342). Even if he can not know what is going on in her mind due to her sleep, he is interested in knowing and is trying to understand her better. The speaker also explains how Jenny used to live in the land when she was a child, and how her innocence made her wonder about the city:

When she would lie in fields and look

Along the ground through the blown grass,

And wonder where the city was. (Gabriel Rossetti, 130-132)

That innocence is lost when she arrives in the city years later because she was forced to enter into prostitution out of necessity; the city’s wealth ends up being something just to look at: ‘When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare/Along the streets alone’(lines 149-150). By talking about her past and her unpleasant welcome to the city, the speaker acknowledges that lack of resources was what pushed Jenny into prostitution, not her immorality. It shows that as a human being she has a history, and her identity goes beyond the limits of a Fallen Woman.

It is this sympathy towards her, the vocabulary he uses to describe her ‘fair Jenny mine’ (line 7) and ‘fresh flower’ (line 12) and his resentment towards other male customers which point out that the speaker has feelings for Jenny:

But most from the hatefulness of man

Who spares not to end what he began,

Whose acts are ill and his speech ill,

Who, having used you at his will,

Thrusts you aside. (Gabriel Rossetti, 83-86)

His fondness and sympathy towards her reinforces the idea that Jenny is not just portrayed as an immoral woman, but also as a lovable woman. In addition, the speaker describes Jenny as a rose shut in the book. Amanda Anderson argues that Jenny’s comparative to as a rose depicts her as a contaminating power. ‘the rose represents the crushed ‘flower within the soul’; the book, at least initially, is the corrupting medium. It becomes impossible to apprehend the pure woman as a reader without reading her as compromised. Here, it is reading itself that corrupts, and the pure woman is defined against such a possibility only through the defensive gesture of prohibition.’[footnoteRef:4] In other words, the dirty morality behind prostitution or all sex out of marriage is a contagious trait that risks the pure morals of all respectable ladies. However, roses symbolise not only beauty but also love and romance. Moreover, when a rose is kept shut in a book and is protected from the air, it does not get damaged. The same way, Jenny would maintain the beauty of her persona, by keeping her away from the socially approved women and their conventionalist influence. This reinforces the speaker’s feelings for Jenny and her portrayal as a woman, not just as a Fallen woman. [4: ]

Robin Sheets disagrees with this argument by defending a pornographic interpretation of Jenny. He defends that Jenny is a pornographic story where Jenny’s only role is to be a prostitute. He supports his argument with Susan Griffin’s opinion on pornography: ‘pornography is an expression not of human erotic feeling and desire, and not of a love of the life of the body, but of a fear of bodily knowledge, and a desire to silence eros.'[footnoteRef:5] In other words, the male speaker gains power in his language by being the only one with a voice and by guessing what she Jenny is dreaming without questioning it. For Sheets, male language control over the other part is a key feature of pornography; the genre, observed Griffin, ‘expresses an almost morbid fear of female speech.’[footnoteRef:6]. However, considering Jenny a pornographic story is inaccurate because it does not fit with either the two common definitions[footnoteRef:7]: firstly, there are no explicit descriptions of any sexual act, and secondly, even if the figure of the female is silent there is no violent context that supports the interpretation of pornography. [5: ] [6: ] [7: ]

In addition to portraying the Fallen Woman as much more than a fallen character, David Bentley argued that the stereotype of the Fallen woman is approached objectively at the beginning of the story to initiate self-reflection in the reader. The first paragraph provides a descriptive picture of the prostitute which incites the reader to think about the issue of prostitution beyond the bad reputation of prostitutes and includes the topics of sin, lust and therefore, the men who reinforce this activity into the discussion As he stated, ‘The reader should leave ‘Jenny’ with a consciousness of the ‘self-questionings and all-questionings’[footnoteRef:8]. His argument makes sense because the story is filled with ambiguities that do not allow specific judgments or very biased opinions to be formed. For instance, his monologue hints that he likes her but he still decides to leave her, he judges other male customers but he is one of them and he goes to a prostitute to have sex but ends up not having it. The way the Fallen Woman is represented in Jenny does not limit the woman to her fallen condition; it explores her previous life, her dreams, and mentions the customers as part of the issue. [8:]

In Goblin Market, the Fallen woman takes the role of a victim who deserves to be saved. The fruit is a symbol for sexual desire and the act of eating it symbolises the sexual act. Laura is drugged by the goblins so they can have sex with her and ‘take’ her virginity, an evil act that positions her as the victim of her ‘fall’.

Regardless of her temptation, Laura initially refuses to buy the fruit reasoning a lack of money:

‘Good folk, I have no coin;

To take were to purloin:

I have no copper in my purse,

I have no silver either. (Christina Rossetti, 116-19)

The goblins do not see a problem with this as long as she pays for the fruit with a lock of her hair. This shows how careless about money they are and how being merchants is just an excuse to expose themselves to the young ladies they were trying to have sex with for the first time and corrupt them. The sexual depiction of the fruit-eating narration (‘She sucked and sucked and sucked the more/…/ She sucked until her lips were sore’ lines 134,146) supports that after biting the fruit, Laura was enchanted to have sex, which implies that the fruit must have had some sort of drugs inside, for her to suddenly allow the sexual activity. It is interesting that after this event she can not hear the goblins’ cry anymore because after getting what they wanted from her, she was no longer a target. Goblin Market, therefore, puts the evil nature of the goblins as the central theme of the story, and as it is proven with the redemptive end, it removes Laura of her ‘fall’s’ blame.

However, some blame Laura accusing her of drug addiction and thus, justifying her Fallen Woman reputation. Victor Roman Mendoza states that at the end, Laura ‘kicks her drug habit'[footnoteRef:9], this would imply that she had previously eaten many forbidden fruits and that the one that is shown in the story would not be the first one. It is an unfounded argument to blame Laura’s fruit consumption to her drug addiction, not only because the goblins persuaded her initial negation but because she states in the story how ‘she never tasted such before’ (line 132), which can not support the idea of an addiction but can indeed support the idea of her first time having sex. [9:]

A religious perspective also supports Laura’s victimisation of Laura. First of all, Christina Rossetti had a religious background that influenced her works, Goblin Market, being one of them. Jerome J. McGann explored in Religious Poetry of Christina Rossetti that Rossetti was ‘Anglican and severely orthodox in her public profession’[footnoteRef:10]. Secondly, Laura represents Eve, who transgresses the rules by eating the forbidden fruit, and the goblins represent Satan. Like Christ, Lizzie faces the consequences of Laura’s act, who has to go back to the goblins and suffer their violence and sexual harassment in order to save or redeem Laura: [10: ]

Stamped upon her tender feet,

held her hands and squeezed their fruits

against her mouth to make her eat. (Christina Rossetti, 405-407)

The redemptive end allows the idea that Fallen Women did not deserve to be punished, because many times they did not have all the responsibility of their misdeed, it takes two parts.

The Fallen Woman in Webster’s A Castaway is portrayed as a strong and independent woman, who does not feel ashamed of her job since it gives her economical freedom, ‘I own it. And what then?’ (line 86). Eulalie’s monologue claims gender inequality as the primary cause of women entering the prostitution world. As much as she prefers to be independent through prostitution over submissive and restricted through marriage, she condemns the fact that this is the only way for a woman to obtain economic freedom. Her feminIst voice is reflected when she addresses the root of women’s problem, patriarchy.

She might be selling her body for money, but the respectable ladies who judge her have also sold her body and freedom for the money that marriage brings. Her monologue blurs the divisions between all women by arguing that getting married or entering prostitution, are both consequences of women’s incapacity to support themselves; because society does not educate them to do so, they just educate them to be good wives:

Well, well, the silly rules this silly world

makes about women! This is one of them.

Why must there be pretence of teaching them

what no one ever cares that they should know. (Webster, 394-397)

Some argue that the way she judges married women and even other prostitutes at some point, indicate her lack of social concern. Therefore, she can not be considered a feminist or empowering if she is tearing other women down for their life decisions. Sutphin argues that Eulalie ‘calls into question even progressive attempts to resolve problems associated with prostitution, particularly the rhetoric of sisterhood and redemption'[footnoteRef:11]. Eulalie initially creates that division and talks poorly about the married ladies, however, she does it out of pain and as a defensive mechanism. This is reflected with the drastic change of narrative tone when she goes from insulting the customers (‘ not such a mighty task/ to pin an idiot to your apron-string’ lines 111-112) to recalling her submissive youth next to her brother: [11: ]

Only, I think, my brother –

I forgot he stopped his brotherhood some years ago –

but if he had been just so much less good

as to remember mercy. (Webster, 480-483)

Therefore, the division some critics argue Eulalie makes is also a division that lives inside of her: between her past of a proper lady and her present of a Fallen Woman. By coming to terms with this conflict (‘Well, after all, there’s not much difference/ between the two sometimes’ lines 652-653) she also accepts the one between proper ladies and fallen women. In the end, they both make decisions for their economic survival, whether it is through marrying or through prostitution:

Do I not know this,

I like my betters, that a woman’s life,

her natural life, her good life, her one life,

is in her husband, God on earth to her,

and what she knows and what she can and is

is only good as it brings good to him? (Webster, 404-409)

It is just a matter of choice: a Fallen Woman in the eyes of the society, or A Fallen Woman in her own eyes because she can never satisfy her life curiosities or be economically independent.

None of these poems represent the female character as a corrupted woman. Jenny, Goblin Market and A Castaway address the situation which in the eyes of society made them Fallen Women but they also provide a wider description of the characters, making their identities more complex. Jenny is a lovable woman, Laura is a victim of the goblins’ sexual vices and Eulalie is an assertive woman who does not fear to speak up about the real problem of society, a patriarchy which demonises independent women and causes prostitution. The three poems attempt to raise awareness about the undeserving label Fallen Women have, because they never fall by themselves, they are pushed to do so.

References

Primary Texts:

1. Rossetti, Christina, ‘Goblin Market’, The Norton Anthology English Literature, E (2006).
2. Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, ‘Jenny’, The Norton Anthology English Literature, E (2006).
3. Webster, Augusta, A Castaway, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1870).

Secondary Texts:

1. Anderson, Amanda, ‘Dramatic Monologue in Crisis: Agency and Exchange in D. G.
2. Rossetti’s ‘Jenny”, Tainted Souls and Painted Faces, (United States: Cornell University Press, 1993).
3. Bentley, David, ‘Ah, Poor Jenny’s Case: Rossetti and the Fallen Woman/Flower’, University of Toronto Quarterly, 50 (1980).
4. Griffin, Susan, Pornography and Silence: Culture’s Revenge against Nature (New York, 1981).
5. McGann, Jerome J.,‘The Religious Poetry of Christina Rossetti’, Critical Inquiry, 10 (1983).
6. Mosk Paker, Lona, ‘Symbol and Reality in Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market’, PMLA, 73(1958).
7. Nead, Lynda, ‘Fallen Women and Foundlings: Rethinking Victorian Sexuality’, History Workshop Journal, 82(2016).
8. Roman Mendoza, Victor, ‘Come Buy: The Crossing of Sexual and Consumer Desire in Christina Rosetti’s Goblin Market’, English Literary History, 73 (2006).
9. Sheets, Robin, ‘Pornography and Art: The Case of ‘Jenny”, Critical Inquiry, 14 (1988).
10. Sutphin, Christine “Human Tigresses, Fractious Angels, and Nursery Saints: Augusta Webster’s ‘A Castaway’ and Victorian Discourses on Prostitution and Women’s Sexuality.”, Victorian Poetry, 38(2000).
11. Tucker, Herbert F., ‘Rossetti’s Goblin Marketing: Sweet to Tongue and Sound to Eye’, Representations, 82(2003).

Women’s Bodies’ Transactions in the Home and the Marketplace from the 1860s to the 1890s

This paper critically discusses women’s gradual entrance in the public sphere by considering their bodies’ transactions in the home and the marketplace from the 1860s until the 1890s. This will be done through a detailed analysis of the particular historical and political contexts, along with considering the different genres, of the following three primary texts: Christina Rossetti’s fairy tale poem Goblin Market (1862), Frances Power Cobbe’s critical essay Wife-Torture in England (1878), and George Bernard Shaw’s unpleasant play Mrs Warren’s Profession (1894). Particular attention will be given to the various political developments in the rights of women during the mid and late Victorian period and the growing anxieties of the Victorian patriarchal capitalistic society. During the 1860s, working-class maidens were firstly discovering the marketplace by falling onto temptations, finally deciding to go back to their sheltered home where they believed to be safe, as highlighted in Goblin Market, which also reflects the patriarchal anxieties of women’s growing influence in the marketplace. However, married women were legally prostituting themselves at home due to marital abuse, therefore leading the private sphere of the home to be perceived as increasingly dangerous. During the 1890s, women were ultimately choosing to sell their bodies and pursuing the “business of luxury” in order to enter the public sphere and go beyond their traditional image as homemakers, instead of surrendering to a life of hard work and atrocious conditions. This distorted choice was made because of the miserable living wages and by their gain of farther independence resulting from the late 1870s and 1880s campaigns for women’s property and marital rights. This paper finally argues that women’s “distorted” entrance in the marketplace (women’s decision about taking the opportunity to make a living through prostitution instead of dying away in factories) accordingly suggests a growing degeneration of the Victoria capitalistic system, symptomatic of a loosening of patriarchal control over women, observable from the 1860s to the 1890s and further beyond.

The 1860s: Rossetti’s Goblin Market

In the late 1850s and 60s, Christina Rossetti was a lay “Associate Sister” at St Mary Magdalene’s house of charity for fallen women in Highgate, London. This charitable institution was intended to redeem through spiritual reformation women who transgressed sexually and to keep them off the market until they had something to sell other than themselves.[footnoteRef:1] Indeed, women’s bodies were mended in the street, commodified, and exploited by the same sexual economy they sought to resist and evade.[footnoteRef:2] An effort to control women’s bodies’ transactions was made with a series of Contagious Diseases Acts in 1864 and 1869 with the aim to impose medical examination and treatment on any woman who was found in certain garrison towns and sea ports and who was suspected of prostitution. ‘Refusal to comply could result in imprisonment. More often, it resulted in police harassment.’[footnoteRef:3] The passage of the Contagious Diseases Acts suggests that, already in the 1860s, prostitution was increasingly perceived as ‘a dangerously contaminating form of sexual activity, one whose boundaries had to be controlled and defined by the state’.[footnoteRef:4] A mass anxiety about infectious diseases was thus emerging, leading the figure of the prostitute to be directly identified with contagion per se.[footnoteRef:5] The social and moral concern about the predominance of prostitutes who were enjoying economic and personal independence ‘masked an anxiety about the inability of society to control women’.[footnoteRef:6] [1: Elizabeth K. Helsinger, ‘Consumer Power and Utopia: Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”, ELH, 58 (1991), 903-933 (p. 908).] [2: Mary Carpenter, ‘” Eat me, Drink me, Love me”: The Consumable Female Body in Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”, Victorian Poetry, 29 (1991), 415-434 (p. 417).] [3: John Allett, ‘”Mrs. Warren’s Profession” and the Politics of Prostitution, Shaw, 19 (1999), 23-39 (p. 24).] [4: Carpenter, p. 416.] [5: Allison Chapman, ‘Goblin Market’, in The Afterlife of Christina Rossetti (London: Macmillan Press LTD, 2000), pp. 131-156 (p. 152).] [6: Maria Frawley, ‘The Victoria nage, 1832-1901’, in English Literature in Context, ed. by Paul Poplawski (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 403-507 (p. 483).]

Concurrently, in the economic sector, ‘an unparalleled prosperity and an astonishing increase in population carried nation forward.’ The value of exports ‘more than doubled between 1855 and 1874; and so too did imports’, leading that period to be remembered as ‘the golden age’.[footnoteRef:7] The British empire was indeed unprecedently expanding by establishing legal aspects of domination in India, where, in 1858, the Government of India Act gave the British Crown the control of its trade. This led Britain to become a dominant empirical force which occupied a pivotal position at the centre of a global economy in a world of competition between empires. Accordingly, the 1860s denoted a new moment in the history of desire ‘in which consumer culture changed the nature of middle-class English femininity, both producing the desire for objects and structuring femininity in relation to that desire.’[footnoteRef:8] Women were slowly leaving the protected home to enter the marketplace, which epitomized ‘both economic and social transgression’, leading to the propagation of anxieties concerning the negative consequences of the market on women.[footnoteRef:9] [7: Edith Batho et Al., ‘The Background: 1830-1914’, in The Victorians and Afters 1830-1914, ed. by. Edith Batho et Al., volume IV (London : The Cresset Press, 1962), pp. 1-22 (p. 16).] [8: Carpenter, p. 416.] [9: Helen Pilinovsky, ‘Conventionalism and Utopianism in Commodification of Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”, Extrapolation, 45 (2004), 52-64 (p. 54).]

In this context of the rise of the market and of an economy of prostitution, Christina Rossetti published her fairy-tale narrative poem Goblin Market in her first volume of poetry Goblin Market and other Poems (1862). Although the poem had originally been titled “A Peep at the Goblins”, ‘Rossetti’s revision to emphasize the significance of the commentary on commerce and commodity culture is noteworthy.’[footnoteRef:10] Undeniably, Goblin Market ‘inscribes consumption as multiple tropes: at once pathological (tuberculosis, the implied disease caused by the fruit), moral (sexual fallenness), and economic (commodification)’.[footnoteRef:11] For the purpose of this essay, only the two last interpretations will be considered: women’s first encounter with the market is indeed emphasized in the poem, making it ‘a tale of women’s survival in a world where the market offers itself to women and girls as a stage for the production of themselves as public beings, on particularly unfavorable terms’.[footnoteRef:12] Paralleling the relationship of the British empire to the rest of the world, Rossetti reproduced the encounter of women with the Victorian marketplace, showing how they were always in danger of being “consumed” because of men’s tendency to exercise their mastery of money through women. When leaving their domestic sphere, Victorian women were thus striving to be a consumer in a marketplace in which they were lacking bargaining power, thus being always at risk of sexual fallenness. [10: Frawley, p. 498.] [11: Chapman, p. 132.] [12: Helsinger, p. 926.]

Similarly, in Goblin Market Laura seeks to participate in the market but seems unprepared: ‘Good Folk, I have no coin; / to take were to purloin’ (116-117). To the goblins’ request, she agrees to offer them a ‘golden curl’ (125) in exchange for their fruit, accordingly allowing them to set the term of the bargain:

‘You have much gold upon your head,’ / They answered all together: / ‘Buy from us with a golden curl.’ / She clipped a precious golden lock, / She dropped a tear rarer than a pearl, / Then sucked their fruits-globes fair or red (123-128)

In paying for the purchase with her golden curl and hence falling to sexual seduction, Laura becomes both the buyer and the bought, the agent and the object of exchange. By substituting the usual economic transaction with a sexually suggestive part of her body, Laura accedes to ‘a process of dehumanization and commercialization whereby she becomes simultaneously a consumer and a commodity.’[footnoteRef:13] The poem therefore allegorically depicts both the increased entrance of women in the marketplace and the patriarchal anxieties of the negative effect of the market on women, where they risk becoming a commodity in a process of sexual vending. In fact, as suggested by Coulson, Laura’s golden lock could be also interpreted as a symbol of her virginity: ‘her surrounding of it to the goblins is a form of self-prostitution; her tear expresses her awareness of what figures as a nonreligious “fall”’.[footnoteRef:14] Accordingly, Goblin market draws attention to women’s plight as commodities in the linked capitalistic and sexual economies. [13: Bentley, p. 70.] [14: Victoria Coulson, ‘Redemption and representation in Goblin Market: Christina Rossetti and the Salvific Signifier’, Victorian Poetry, 55 (2018), 423-450 (p. 432).]

Goblin Market reveals thus that women cannot enter and compete with men on equal terms in the mid-Victorian marketplace. Yet the poem also suggests that ‘female interaction with the male tradition, however complicated and risky, is also inevitable.’[footnoteRef:15] Indeed, Lizzie and Laura ‘triumph over the market only to withdraw from it’, demonstrating how ‘at the point when women seem most empowered, the poem reaches the limits of its ability to conceive their relations to the market.’[footnoteRef:16] During the 1860s, the anxieties about both women’s entrance in the marketplace and women’s dangerous relation to both consumption and production (i.e. fallen women producing themselves and commodifying their bodies) were thus exposed in Christina Rossetti’s poem, which portrays them through an allegory presenting a fairy world in which the home is the only safe place for women. [15: Catherine Marxwell, ‘Tasting the « Fruit Forbidden » : Gender, Intertextuality, and Christina Rossetti’s « Goblin Market »’, in The Culture of Christina Rossetti – Female Poetics and Victorian Contexts, ed. by Mary Arseneau et Al. (Athens : Ohio University Press, 1999) pp. 75-102 (p. 84).] [16: Helsinger, p. 907.]

The 1870s: Cobbe’s Wife -Torture in England

However, during the late 1870s and the early 1880s, what was considered the safe household began to publicly be perceived by women as a dangerous place almost to the same degree as the marketplace. ‘Although marriage was seen to be a matter of survival for Victorian women, it provided nothing more than a new household with growing responsibilities but no real benefit or security.’[footnoteRef:17] Wive had no rights on their own properties or money, which belong exclusively to their husbands, who were also the unquestionable owners of the custody of their children and who were legally allowed to beat and abuse them, also known as “marital rape”. In Wife-Torture in England (1878), Frances Power Cobbe clearly contended that ‘the whole relation between the sexes in the class we are considering is very little better than one of master and slave’ (61). In being the legal properties of their fathers, husbands, and brothers, wives were indeed reduced to ‘the most abject condition of legal slavery’, leading the Victorian values of earnestness, refinement, and sexual prudishness to develop ‘into a form of slavery’ and, as Cobbe argues, to be ‘the fatal root of incalculable evil and misery’.[footnoteRef:18] [17: Askin Haluk Yildirim, ‘The Woman Question and the Victorian Literature on Gender’, 45-54 (p. 47).] [18: Yildirim, p. 46.]

During these specific decades of the Victorian Era, feminists began to increasingly engage in the public and political sectors in order to gain more legal rights and to outdistance the traditional patriarchal supremacy and their traditional image as “the Angel in the House”. Feminists were beginning to confront marital sexual abuse, ‘men’s use of prostitutes, the double moral standard, and the dominant assumption that men had “uncontrollable” sexual urges.’[footnoteRef:19] ‘The conflict between the sexes both in the domestic and in the political spheres was perceived as a threat by Victorian men whose supremacy was challenged by women’s emancipation, leading the already existing gender violence to become more intense.[footnoteRef:20] As indicated by Gorham, ‘it was one of the tenets of a patriarchal society that women could never be full members of the society.[footnoteRef:21] Cobbe clearly exposed this inequality by contending that ‘the position of a woman before the law as a wife, mother, and citizen remains so much below that of a man as husband, father, and citizen, that it is a matter of course that she must be regarded by him as an inferior, and fail to obtain from him much a modicum of respect.’ (61) [19: Lucy Bland, ‘Marriage Laid Bare: Middle-Class Women and Marital Sex 1880s-1914’, in Labour and Love: Women’s Experience of Home and Family, ed. by Jane Lewis (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), pp. 123-148 (p. 124).] [20: Yildirim, p. 47.] [21: Deborah Gorham, ‘The « Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon » Re-examined: Child Prostitution and the idea of Childhood in Late-Victorian England’, Victorian Studies, 1978, 353-379 (p. 363).]

The literature of the period on gender along with the new proto-sociological forms of knowledge such as journalism, appear to have been effective means of expression in favour of Victorian women’s struggle for emancipation. Cobbe was indeed a journalist, workhouse philanthropist, religious philosopher, and one of the best-known feminist activist and writers of the late Victorian period.[footnoteRef:22] Her social-scientific analysis of working-class distress, Wife-Torture in England, presented ‘an accumulation of detailed information about health, employment, living conditions, and education of the poor, gathered by eyewitness observers, civil servants, and statisticians’, in order to highlight the severity of the problem of domestic violence among working-class populations in England’s urban industrial centers. [footnoteRef:23] Cobbe aggregated women into numerical categories to render them abstract and quantifiable, therefore available for public use. Her engagement in patriarchal standards, along with her detached, impersonal language and her cold, scientific tone were Cobbe’s techniques in order to make her argument more pervasive and guide structural changes. [22: Susan Hamilton, ‘Making History with Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminism, Domestic Violence, and the Language of imperialism’, Victorian Studies, 3 (2001), 437-460 (p. 441).] [23: Janice Schroeder, ‘Narrating Some Poor Little Fable: Evidence of Bodily Pain in « The History of MaryPrince » and « Wife-Torture in Englan »’, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 23 (2004), 261-281 (p. 264-65).]

Her article was her fourth to be published in the Contemporary Review, ‘following substantial pieces on vivisection, women’s healthcare, and a reply to criticism of the latter’, leading it to be identified as ‘the primary venue for Cobbe’s periodical writing’ during the late Victorian period, also due to its large scale of powerful and well-educated male readers.[footnoteRef:24] Cobbe was indeed writing ‘to persuade the “better sort” of gentlemen in Parliament to pass legislation needed by women who could not afford other protection’, while ultimately pushing for women’s right to vote.[footnoteRef:25] Indeed, in 1867, the Reform Act enfranchised part of the urban male working class in England and Wales for the first time, but not women. On the 17th of May 1878, the British Parliament accepted Cobbe’s drafted bill – The Matrimonial Causes Act – and wives obtained a legal separation from their husbands, a protection order, and a marriage settlement for control of their properties. Wife-torturing was undeniably one of the symptoms of a moral and social disorder, ‘a social crisis of national dimensions worthy of large-scale initiatives such as changes to married laws’, which degenerated utterly during the last decade of the Victorian era.[footnoteRef:26] [24: Hamilton, p. 446.] [25: Sally Mitchell, ‘Parliamentary Politics: 1875-1878’, in Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer (London: University of Virginia Press, 2004), pp. 229-266 (p. 261).] [26: Schroeder, p. 275.]

It is evident how prostitution, by which women were reduced to mere sexual bodies both legally in marriage and in the marketplace, hunted relations between men and women during the late Victorian era. The home, previously considered by the patriarchal ideology as the unique safe place where women truly belonged, was ultimately perceived by women as increasingly unstable and perilous. Therefore, women wanted to enter the public sphere in order to earn their livings and to go beyond their image of homemakers. Accordingly, early Victorian beliefs excluding women from the economic realm and positioning them as sexual objects and guarding of the household were being challenged in the political, economic, and legal circles.[footnoteRef:27] Women were beginning to obtain more legal rights and to enter the marketplace, as a way to both become economically independent and to escape from the terrors of the Victorian marriage market. Wife-beating was therefore presented as a symptom of the degeneration and of the failure of civilization since it was ‘a remnant of savages times, an ancient form of violence that was the antithesis of modern civilization’.[footnoteRef:28] [27: Yildirim, p. 47.] [28: Jo Aitken, ‘«The Horrors of Matrimony among the Masses» : Feminists Representation of Wife Beaing in England and Australia, 1870-1914’, Journal of Women’s History, 19 (2007), 107-131 (p. 115).]

The 1880s and the early 1890s: Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession

In 1885, W.T. Stead’s published a sensational exposé on the White Slave Traffic in The Pall Mall Gazette, to which George Bernard Shaw was a regular contributor. Stead’s articles marked the point when growing public attacks on prostitution reached its highest.[footnoteRef:29] Accordingly, Shaw began to severely criticize the economic causes of prostitution and society’s collective guilt with his publication of the Quintessence of Ibsenism and his section on the Womanly Woman in 1891.[footnoteRef:30] In 1894, with the publication of his controversial and didactic unpleasant play Mrs Warren’s Profession, Shaw denounced something Victorian society considered as ‘unspeakable, not to be discussed in polite society- the bartering of women’s bodies and lives condoned by the capitalistic ethic.[footnoteRef:31] Certainly, the vastness of prostitution as international commerce for profit was becoming uncontrollable. This was previously uncovered by the medical journal The Lancet, which estimated that in 1857 ‘one house in every sixty in London was a brothel, and one female in every sixteen was a whore’, concluding that there were ‘more than 6’000 brothels in London and about 80’000 prostitutes.’[footnoteRef:32] [29: Philip Graham, ‘Bernard Shaw’s neglected role in English Feminism 1880-1914’, Journal of Gender Studies, 23 (2014), 167-183 (p. 174).] [30: Rodelle Weintraub, ‘The Root of the White Slave Traffic’, in Fabian Feminist – Bernard Shaw and Woman, ed. by Rodelle Weintraub (London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977), pp. 255-259 (p. 255).] [31: Dan H. Laurence, ‘Victorians Unveiled: Some Thoughts on Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Shaw, 24 (2004), 36-45 (p. 44).] [32: Laurence, p. 39.]

Shaw argued in the 1930 preface to Mrs Warren’s Profession and in his 1944 political commentary Everybody’s Political What’s What? that ‘prostitution is an economic phenomenon produced by an underpayment of honest women so degrading, and an overpayment of whores so luxurious, that a poor woman of any attractiveness actually owed it to her self-respect to sell herself in the streets rather than toil miserably in a sweater’s den sixteen hours a day for two pence an hour.’[footnoteRef:33] Shaw, with the use of hyperbole, frankly attacked the Victorian capitalistic system and ‘its underpaying, undervaluing, and overworking of women’ instead of accusing the prostitute’s own choice to vend herself and her ‘female depravity’.[footnoteRef:34] Because of its mass form of influence, Shaw’s play was therefore subjected to censorship and banned from the West End stage by the Lord Chamberlain for 31 years from 1894, when it was first written, until 1925, when it was finally produced on stage at Birmingham’s Prince of Wales Theatre after over three decades of censorship and the arrest of the cast of the first production in New York in 1905, along with the foundation of a campaign for the abolition of the White Slave Traffic by the League of Nations at Geneva.[footnoteRef:35] [33: Shaw, Everybody’s Political What’s What? (London: Constable, 1944), p. 196.] [34: Charles Berst, ‘Mrs. Warren’s Profession – Art over Didacticism’, in Bernard Shaw and the Art of Drama (London: University of Illinois Press, 1973), pp. 3-19 (p. 3).] [35: Bran Kent, ‘Bernard Shaw, the British Censorship of Plays, and Modern Celebrity’, English Literature in Translation 1880-1920, 57 (2014), 231-253 (p. 244).]

It is clear that, in a society that exploited and forced women into a position of economic dependence upon men, prostitution was almost inevitable. No effort was made neither to make the vending of bodies illegal nor to repress it, partly because of men’s belief that prostitution was the “necessary evil”, and therefore ‘inevitable’, ‘almost an organic part of society.[footnoteRef:36] Women were therefore conceptualized as ‘”the Sex”, as a sexual object to be bought and sold’.[footnoteRef:37] Previously concealed, The White Slave Traffic was uncovered in the press as ‘a small traffic in women between Britain and the continent’.[footnoteRef:38] Young English girls were procured from their families and decoyed to foreign cities such as Paris, Brussels, and Ostend and kept against their will to slave as prostitutes in brothels until their health or youth perished. It is thus evident why Shaw used Brussels as ‘Mrs. Warren’s operating base’, since Belgium was the center of that illicit trade.[footnoteRef:39] [36: Sonya Lorichs, ‘ « The Unwomanly Woman » in Shaw’s Drama’, in Fabian Feminist – Bernard Shaw and Woman, ed. by Rodelle Weintraub (London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977), pp. 99-111 (p. 101).] [37: Judith R. Walkowitz, ‘The Politics of Prostitution’, Signs, 1 (1980), 123-135 (p. 125).] [38: Walkowitz, p. 126.] [39: Lorichs, p. 101.]

Even if led into prostitution by poverty and the lack of better opportunities, the revelation that young girls were enjoying prostituting themselves due to the luxurious side of that business is clearly presented in Mrs Warren’s defence for her decision to remain in that immoral and exploitative enterprise:

But where can a woman get the money to save in any other business? All we had was our appearance and our turn for pleasing men. Do you think we were such fools as to let other people trade in our good looks by employing us as shopgirls, or barmaids, or waitresses when we could trade in them ourselves and get all the profits instead of starvation waged? Not likely.[footnoteRef:40] [40: George Bernard Shaw, ‘Mrs Warren’s Profession’, in Plays Unpleasant, ed. by Dan H. Laurence (London : Penguin Books LTD, 1980), pp. 179-288 (p. 249).]

Certainly, Kitty’s decision about capitalizing on prostitution grew from her painful experiences of her younger half-sister’s death caused by lead poisoning after toiling in a white-lead factory twelve hours a day for nine shillings a week. It was thus the ‘brutal bleakness of their lives that probably led many young girls into prostitution.[footnoteRef:41] However, as Shaw acknowledged, ‘Mrs Warren’s defense of herself is not only bold and specious but valid and unanswerable. But it is no defense at all of the vice which she organizes.’[footnoteRef:42] Indeed, even after having long escaped from her impoverished origins by turning to prostitution as a more favorable option than marriage, and being therefore able to distance herself from that business of women’s sexual and economic exploitation, Kitty enjoys her 40 percent on the “hotels” she runs on the continent. As she states, her past has made her fit for that particular trade ‘and not for anything else’[footnoteRef:43], therefore craving the thrill and excitement of work.[footnoteRef:44] Accordingly, by presenting Mrs Warren’s defense of her social and moral transgressions of benefitting from the exploitation and deception of young girls, Shaw was exposing ‘a society in which women become not only instruments but executors of patriarchal power’, indicating, therefore, a degeneration in the access of women in the Victorian capitalistic society and its marketplace.[footnoteRef:45] [41: Gorham, p. 374.] [42: Shaw, p. 201.] [43: Shaw, p. 283.] [44: Kent, ‘Eighteenth-Century’, p. 159.] [45: Dierkes, p. 302.]

Young girls were therefore entering the marketplace via the business of prostitution. Yet they were not passive, sexually innocent victims, but experienced girls whose life gave them ‘little reason to believe that any genuinely satisfactory possibility existed’ for them, lacking self-worth and thus consciously choosing prostitution as the best option available, such as Mrs Warren did.[footnoteRef:46] Women’s bodies’ transactions were ultimately perceived to differ little from the ordinary market exchange. This distorted entrance of women in the marketplace, either due to marital abuse and to the unsafeness of their home or because of the unavailability of better options, was symptomatic of degeneration of the Victorian capitalistic society. [46: Gorham, p. 376.]

This paper has discussed women’s gradual entrance in the public sphere by considering women’s bodies’ transactions in the home and the marketplace from the 1860s until the 1890s through a detailed analysis of Rossetti’s Goblin Market (1862), Cobbe’s Wife-Torture in England (1878), and Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession (1894). The various political developments in the rights of women during the mid and late Victorian periods and the growing anxieties of the Victorian patriarchal capitalistic society were outlined, while however shedding new light on the distorted entrance of women in the marketplace and its degeneration. Women’s final choice of prostituting accordingly suggests a growing degeneration of the Victoria capitalistic system, which is symptomatic of a loss of patriarchal control over women.

What is the most terrifying and thought provoking topic? Some people would say death within a heartbeat. Death is unknown, sudden, and perhaps lonely. It’s unnerving because death can come with a great extent of emotions like grief, anger, and loneliness. Christina Rossetti was an English poet in the Victorian age who was known for her themes of death and strong emotions in her poetry. The poem “Echo,” published in 1862, contains lots of imagery and symbolism that reference the state of feeling the author tries to convey. The overall theme of the poem circulates death in the perspective of the narrator. Her loss of her loved one produces feelings of desire and loss. The entire poem was directed towards the dead loved one to come back to the author’s life and make it whole again. The poem “Remember,” also published in 1862, conveys the same theme except the role of the narrator is reversed from “Echo.” Both emotional poems, “Echo” and “Remember” by Christina Rossetti present the struggle of a connection between the living and the dead. They present the author’s sorrow and longing in an intricate yet simple way. Although the two poems speak tremendous volumes of heartache and grief, together they serve this perspective of seeing both sides, death and life. Rossetti provides these nostalgic memories and experiences to present her emotion. Both poems provide this detailed experience of losing someone you really care about. More importantly, comparing the two poems’ use of figurative language, themes, tone, and literary devices convey the central idea of this illusion of a barrier between life and death that one cannot cross.

Christina Rossetti was born in London in 1830 into this talented family background. Her father was an Italian poet as well as her brother. Her mother’s ambition into having all her children reach intellectual excellency is why Rossetti is now known as one of the most infamous Victorian poets. According to Gillian C. Gill, an academic writer, “Most notably after her father’s death in 1854, Rossetti entered her most creative and productive years” (Gill) These years were labeled to be her hidden years. It’s when a poet disappears into the face of the earth after a major event. Her father meant a lot to her because he was the first poet she even knew. However, after some time Rossetti gained lots of interest in her poem because of how raw and emotional they were. At the time there was this overwhelming question concerning who was the best female poet of the era between Christina Rossetti and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. After Rossetti held to be the successor she started diving into poems with themes of death. In Poetry Foundation’s biography about her, they mention, “In 1849 she had her first taste of fame when, at Dante Gabriel’s instigation, she submitted two of her poems, ‘Death’s Chill Between’ and ‘Heart’s Chill Between,’ to the prestigious literary periodical” (Christina). Rossetti’s infatuation with death influenced her to write many of these great poems. She wrote about the type of death that didn’t share her views in the afterworld. Rossetti’s young poetry verses about death presents themes in her writing of a fragile romantic aspect.

In Rossetti’s poem Echo, the speaker has this concept of calling out to someone in a lingering and prolonging matter. The speaker is talking to a loved one who is making them feel alive once more by recollecting their memories. In the first stanza, Rossetti writes, “Come to me” (Rossetti, line 1). The author uses repetition by repeating this phrase throughout the poem. The simplicity of the repeating phrase gives this deeply emotional purpose of being sentimental. The author is calling out to their lover to come to them repeatedly. The lack of response is crafting a

Christina Rossetti, one of the most prominent female British poets, was born in 1830, and wrote during the height of the Victorian age. As a well-educated, but unmarried woman, she would have been intimately familiar with the standards that the fairer sex were held to, the most important of which was purity. As journalists Karen Prior points out, purity, or virtue, was almost always equated with virginity in the Victorian era, and so women who had transgressed sexually in the eyes of society through prostitution, adultery, or intercourse before marriage, were known as ‘fallen woman’ and were shunned (Furneaux).

Christina Rossetti’s poem, The Goblin Market, written in 1859, functioned as a moral allegory cautioning against sexual transgression, using the extended metaphor of the fruit sold by the Goblin men to represent a sinful intercourse. The warning against the Goblin men echoes throughout the poem, beginning with admonitions and not to look at the Goblin men (Rossetti, 42, 49), and then going on to describe the dangers of their fruit, as it ‘would harm us’ (66), and is ‘poison in the blood’ (555).

In Victorian England, prostitution and other sexual misdemeanors were regarded as very serious social evils, and it was believed that these sins would lead to deep tragedy, and ultimately, death. This attitude is reflected in the first section of The Goblin Market, where Lizzie reminds her straying sister of what happened to their friend, Jeanie, who met the Goblin men and ‘ ate their fruits’ (150). This unfortunate girl ‘dwindled and grew grey’ (156), and, at the time of the poem, lies buried in a grave where flowers refused to grow (157-161). The story of Jeanie is revisited later in the poem, and the metaphor becomes more explicit, saying that Jeanie

… should have been a bride;

But who for joys brides hope to have

Fell sick and died (313-315).

In other words, the joy of the bride, which is sex, was indulged in before marriage, and as a consequence, the girl died. Victorian society was obsessed with this fear and even the Bishop of London addressed the issue in 1868, discussing strategies to reduce prostitution and encouraging ‘the prevention of early vice among the young’ (The Morning Chronicle, 3).

The Goblin Market discourages sexual indiscretion, but rather than focusing on temptation being overcome, it deals with the possibility of redemption after the temptation is given in to. The poem follows two sisters, Lizzie and Laura, through one of the most common of story patterns: temptation (Rossetti, 1-80), the fall (81-298), and redemption through sacrifice (299-567).

This trope can be seen in many stories and pieces of literature, not the least of which is the Bible. The Bible tells the story of the creation of humankind, their temptation, their fall into sin, and eventually, their redemption through the death of Jesus, who took a consequence of sin upon himself, and then rose from the dead in victory. The Christian church played a significant role in the everyday life of people in Victorian England, so most readers would recognise the parallels in plot and form between The Goblin market and the Bible (Arnstein, 149-175).Â

Christina Rossetti was a woman of deep faith, and intimately familiar with the Bible (and much of her writing reflects her religious and spiritual convictions). Her view of female virtue was in alignment with what Victorian society held to be true, but what set her apart from the majority of Victorians was her belief that fallen women were not necessarily ‘lost forever’ (Poetry Foundation), but could be rehabilitated and saved. The last half of The Goblin Market (the redemption section) reveals this new perspective. For example, rather than viewing Laura with judgment, as many Victorians would have viewed prostitutes, Lizzie treats her fallen sister with deep compassion, and ‘could not bear to watch her sister’s cankerous care Yet not share’ (Rossetti, 299-301). It is this kindness that ultimately leads to Laura’s redemption, through Lizzie’s sacrificial actions. Lizzie is almost a Christ-like figure in her brave quest to save Laura’s life, and the Biblical allusion and symbolism throughout the last section of the poem would have been familiar to most Victorian readers (Arnstein, 149-175). Just as in the Bible, blameless and sinless Jesus Christ took upon himself the sin of all humankind (and as a result, their punishment), so similarly in The Goblin Market, Lizzie who never ate the Goblin fruit, chose to share in her sister’s punishment:

undone in mine undoing,

And ruin’d in my ruin (482-483).

In the poem, Lizzie tells her sister, ‘for your sake I have braved the glen And had to do with goblin merchant men’ (473-474), just as Jesus had to brave the consequences of sin. According to the Bible, the natural punishment for sin is death(English Standard Version, Romans 6.23), and so Jesus died. His sacrifice allowed humans to live eternally in heaven by trusting in him (John 3.16), and because Jesus was also God, he came back to life (2 Corinthians 5.14-15). This death and resurrection pattern is alluded in the poem, and as Jesus’ sacrifice allows humans to live, so Lizzie’s sacrifice brings to her sister ‘ life out of death’ (Rossetti, 524). Due to Rossetti’s piety, and the fact that she worked for over 10 years as one of the ‘sisters’ at the St. Mary Magdalene house for fallen women (a refuge designed to support and rehabilitate fallen women), it is understandable that she used the illusion of redemption through sisterly love in her poem.

For all its moralizing, The Goblin Market does not conclude with a stern warning or cautionary phrase, but rather with a restatement of the power of sisterly love:

For there is no friend like a sister

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, 562-567)

The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti is more than just a story of sisterly love. When studied in the socio historical context, this poem provides a fascinating insight into some of the darker aspects of Victorian culture, specifically its judgment of fallen women. Using Biblical allusion and extended metaphor, the poem explores not only the dangers of sexual transgression, but also the possibility of redemption, and this is what makes the poem still relevant today. Many of the societal standards for women and common beliefs about virtue that were prevalent in Christina Rossetti’s time no longer apply to general society today, but despite the changes in culture and worldview, the themes of sacrifice, love, and redemption hold true, and everyone can acknowledge the power of a story that tells of a sister who “ Stood in deadly peril to do her[ sister] good’ (557-558).

In ‘Maude Clare’, Rossetti shows a powerful alternative type of woman – Maude Clare. The name is significant as ‘Maude’ derives from the word ‘warrior’ and connotes extreme strength and power, thus presenting women and their female sexuality as a powerful weapon that only warriors like Maude Clare and women possess. However, there are similarities between this poem and ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ as Rossetti uses the noun ‘queen’ to describe Maude Clare at the end of the first stanza to strongly resemble royalty, extravagance and possibly sexuality, themes that are also present through the description of the Duchess in the play and her being a ‘prince’. The use of royalty initiates a hierarchy in the poem as the other woman in the poem (Nell) is described by Rossetti as a ‘village maid’, perhaps someone more reserved and modest than Maude Clare. Rossetti uses interclass to exemplify the defiance of stereotypes of Victorian women and exploit those who are non-conforming. “Out of the church she followed them with a lofty step”, implies rebellion and perhaps spitefulness as the adjective ‘lofty’ suggests that Maude Clare is imposing her superiority over the couple and dominates the scene which is what some would say would be ‘brave’ of a Victorian woman but is also perceived as ridiculous and inappropriate behavior. Therefore, similar to Julia, Maude Clare is very aware of her inappropriate and subversive actions and attitude however she chooses to go against the Victorian patriarchy knowingly and weaponized her female sexuality.

As mentioned, a character that possesses Maude Clare flare and sexual prowess is that of Julia in ‘The Duchess of Malfi’. Webster is able to prove female sexuality once again as a weapon and uses Julia to challenge the patriarchy and prove this in doing so. Julia is seen to have sexual relations with a number of male characters in the play, despite being married. A Jacobean audience would have been extremely judgmental to her wanton nature, especially under the religious climate of the 17th century; she would have been looked down upon for breaking the sanctified covenant of marriage under God by sexually entertaining other men outside of her marriage. The proliferation of manuals reminding women of their wifely duties and the dangers of straying from them (for example, ‘A Crystal Glass for Christian Women’ by Philip Stubbes, 1591) suggests that women such as Julia who ignore and purposely go against them were, in practice, chooses to weaponize their sexuality. However, a feminist reading, and audience would sympathize with Julia as the Jacobean patriarchy was known to weigh down most heavily on women such as Julia, and her sexually ambitious temper allows her to be as liberated as a man and use her sexuality as a weapon. In doing so, Julia claims that “The only remedy to do me good Is to kill my desire”. Julia is flirtatious with Bosola, acting against the Cardinal’s wishes and against the expected behavior of a woman in the Jacobean period. She uses a declarative and first-person pronoun to indicate her sexual desires and is seen weaponizing her sexuality to manipulate the men around her. Furthermore, the Cardinal ahead of symbolically poisoning Julia with the Bible, is suspicious and states that her “curiosity has undone thee”. In making this statement, the cardinal creates a comparison between Julia and Eve. Similar to Eve, she is tempted by curiosity in the form of lust and poisoned leading to her downfall, another misogynistic sentiment. Women in Jacobean England were widely thought to have much stronger sexual desire than men, which is one of the main reasons they were often feared as untrustworthy and why chastity was so adamantly instructed. Julia completely chooses to oppose this and does as she please. What makes Julia seemingly the most challenging and threatening character to the patriarchy is the fact that she is vividly aware of the dangers and restrictions bound by the patriarchy, however by actively choosing to go against them for personal gain and her own sexual liberation, she uses her female sexuality as weapon just as Maude Clare does.

Contrarily, Rossetti is able to also present female sexuality as a curse and extremely troublesome to women of the Victorian period. Rossetti conforms to the idea that female sexuality is indeed a curse is through the poem ‘Soeur Louise’. Rossetti was known to be extremely sympathetic to fallen women who had unfortunately succumbed to their imminent desires that stem from their sexuality. Moreover, Rossetti, being a volunteer at St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary, was quite understanding and not overly judgmental as she believed in both redemption, which was a core belief of Tractarianism, and the fact that forbidden desires such as sexual desire and lust was natural and at times unavoidable. This would have originated from another religious standpoint; Rossetti being a devout Anglican Tractarian, she was very acquainted with the Bible and particularly the form in which original sin and the female ‘curse’ was started, being that was Adam and Eve’s first temptation and it’s trickling down to the people of the humankind, specifically women. This form of desire ‘trickling’ is seen in the poem ‘Soeur Louise’. Linguistically, the semantic field of loss continues – ‘trickles’, ‘drop’, ‘dross’, and ‘prickles’. The speaker mourns the destruction that her desire has caused and regrets that her “rose of life” has become thorns instead, painfully beautiful. Interestingly, this is also something that is extremely evident in Webster’s depiction of the Duchess, he takes a more sympathetic approach regarding female desire. This seen when Julia states female desire and “modesty in ladies is but a troublesome familiar that haunts them”. Once again, this lexical field of female sexuality being beyond a woman control and a ‘curse’ is repeated; in this vivid description, an image is painted for the audience of a familiar (witches’ sidekick) cursing women with their sexuality and desires which will ‘haunt’ them for as long as they live which results them in having to repress them and keep modest. This commonplace is interesting as it is believed to be true in both the Jacobean and Victorian periods, therefore highlights even more the extent of female sexuality truly being a curse in a religious and spiritual way.

Although it may be contrary to Websters true objective, he is seen to weaponize and glorify some aspects of female sexuality when presenting his female characters. This completely contrasts Rossetti who, being a Victorian woman, is able to depict femininity and female sexuality in both actions and consequences as far more realistic and honest whereas Webster being a man of the 17th century, is able to take a more idealistic and utopian outlook on what he perceives female sexuality to be which in this case is a weapon and a power that almost all his female characters have. With that being said, Webster is not completely tone deaf as perhaps due to him once again being male, he is able to clearly portray his male characters (when in response to female sexuality) as far more reflective of gender and social norms of the Jacobean era. In particular, Ferdinand and the Cardinal’s views on women and their use of female sexuality. They are both depicted as misogynistic hypocrites who look down on their sister for possibly choosing to remarry, going as far as to aim to control her sexuality despite being completely fine with going against God and using their male sexuality to satisfy them. This could largely be because of Jacobean standards of women; specifically, the fears of women remarrying in large part were fueled by anxieties about female sexuality in general (and of widows in particular). Women in Jacobean England were widely thought to have much stronger sexual desire than men, which is one of the main reasons they were often feared as untrustworthy and why chastity was so adamantly instructed. Specifically, Ferdinand expresses this common misogynistic rhetoric when he says to the Duchess: “And women like that part which, like the lamprey, Hath ne’er a bone in’t”, his reference to the lamprey exhibits a more apparent use of phallic imagery, flaunting his own male sexuality as a torment to the Duchess’s female sexuality. Widows, as sexually experienced women, were thought to be especially susceptible to this feminine vice. Ferdinand dwells on about this theme with particular urgency (perhaps of fear of bloodline being tainted or his own incestuous desires), declaring that to marry twice is ‘lascivious’ and then finally declaring his sister a ‘lusty widow’ before leaving the stage. Therefore, by going against society’s status quo and choosing to remarry, this has a severe impact on the Duchess’s decisions, affecting her life as a whole negatively and directs he Duchess to her untimely death, similar to all other female characters who choose to act on female sexuality. This, therefore, establishes that during the 17th century it was indeed a curse on act on female desire and sexuality as it would eventually lead to your demise.

Rossetti also highlights that male criticism and control is key in establishing that female sexuality is indeed a curse to women. ‘Goblin Market’ is a poem that presents female sexuality as both a weapon and a curse, similar to Webster’s presentation of sexuality in ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ and is a cautionary tale about sexual desire. From the start, it is established that it is forbidden to give in to your desires and express your sexuality, this is represented by the goblins’ fruits. Jeanie’s death is an example of the consequences of giving in to desires – punishment for her lack of self-control and is a lesson to other young girls to control this “curse” or suffer the consequences. Rossetti presents sexual desires as addicting and harmful so women should not succumb to their sexuality. The long list of fruit is exaggerated to represent the overwhelming feeling Laura is overcome with and the curse placed by men (goblins) – as well as temptation and forbidden sexuality. The dense hyperbolic description highlights the fascination Laura experiences. The repetition of the phrase “come buy, come buy” gives a sinister, seductive, and addicting tone to the goblins who are emblematic of the men in the Victorian period. Laura struggles with abstaining from the desired fruits and eventually sacrifices a lock of hair for a taste of fruit. The connection of the poem and Alexander Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’ lies in the significance of a woman’s hair; cutting hair indicates a loss of innocence and Laura willingly exchanging her hair for fruit can be seen as a metaphor for prostitution. The sexual implication of the line “she sucked until her lips were sore” shows that she is now tarnished. Laura ultimately became addicted and could never have enough, “her hair grew thin and grey” and almost leading to her death. Sexuality is clearly a curse in Laura’s case as this powerful imagery of Laura withering away conveys the consequences of her giving into desires. Therefore, this shows that as long a male sexual objectification and disapproval is involved as represented by the male goblins, women’s sexual nature will always act a curse towards them.

In conclusion, both Rossetti and Webster are able to portray an interesting argument both for and against female sexuality being a weapon or curse when delving deeper into their writings. In ‘The Duchess of Malfi’, the Duchess does not intend to use her sexuality as a weapon but instead is empowered by her sexual freedom, but this becomes a weapon and curse against her brothers’ wishes. She takes control of her relationship with Antonio and strives for happiness. Julia also weaponizes her sexuality and utilizes it for her own needs but ultimately it becomes both their downfall, and consequently, a curse also. For Rossetti, she presents the consequences of expressing your sexuality, insinuating the acting on female sexuality to be religiously sinful and enforcing her conservative beliefs. However, she did recognize the appeal of it in ‘Goblins Market’ and understood the power that sexuality and desire possesses in ‘Soeur Louise’, and there was redemption for Laura when Lizzie learns to use her sexuality as a weapon which was reflective of the sisterly salvation Rossetti discovered in St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary. Therefore, in the end, it is unequivocally clear that in the given time frame of both the 17th and 19th century, female sexuality when presenting gender in the texts is both a weapon and curse.

Before the Victorian era, there were very few famous female poets. However, during this era, many important female poets were born, such as Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Browning and Christina Rossetti. Christina Rossetti was one of the most important female poets in the nineteenth century. She was viewed as a typical Victorian poet, who frequently wrote about love and faith. This poet wrote many excellent poems such as “Remember” which is a sonnet that reflects her beliefs on love, death and remembrance.

Firstly, Christina Georgina Rossetti was born in 1830 in London and died of cancer in 1894, at the age of 64. In her childhood, her mom made her study religious works, classics, fairytales and novels. She seemed to have a happy life, until her father, Gabriel Rossetti, got sick. Gabriel Rossetti was a professor at King’s College. However, he had to give up his career because of his failing mental and physical health. As a result, her family faced a lot of financial difficulties. At the age of 14, Christina had to give up school because of her nervous breakdowns. During this period, she became interested in the Anglo-Catholic movement. Since then, Christina’s life was mostly devoted to her religion (Anglican). When Christina became an adult, she was engaged to three people. However, she could not marry them for religious reasons. Christina Rossetti began to write poems in 1842, and published her first poem, in 1848, when she was 18. A few years later, in 1850, she started her career by contributing to a literary magazine, “The Germ”, which was edited by her brother. In 1862, she published her most famous poem collection, “Goblin Market and Other Poems”, which established her fame in Victorian poetry. After her death, Christina Rossetti was recognized as a major Victorian poet and as “the greatest woman poet in the 19th century”.

Secondly, Christina Rossetti was a poet who wrote a variety of poems with different themes. Some of these themes included: religion, feminism, romance and death. Her poems are very songlike and they tend to have short and irregular rhyme schemes. Furthermore, Christina was viewed as a typical Victorian poet because her poetry reflected her profound Anglican faith and her thoughts about love and religion.

“Remember” is a sonnet about love and death. Through this poem, Christina Rossetti conveys the idea that the death of a loved one is not something to mourn, but that it is something to remember. This is demonstrated when the narrator says things such as “Only remember me” and “[…] afterwards remember, do not grieve” (line 7, 10). In the poem, it is evident that the narrator is dying because of the metaphor “the silent land” (line 2), which signifies heaven. While the narrator acknowledges her coming death, she asks her lover to remember her even after she dies. However, she also says “Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad (line 13-14)”. Through this quotation, the narrator subtly states that she would rather be forgotten if the remembrance of her negatively affects her lover. This is ironic, because the narrator clearly stated many times previously that she wanted to be remembered. This idea, along with the other expressions used by the narrator creates a very emotional mood and an indirect tone. In terms of the form of the poem, the author used envelope rhyme in the first quatrain: line 1 rhymes with line 4, line 2 rhymes with line 3, line 5 rhymes with line 8 and line 6 rhymes with line 7. However, in the second stanza, the lines rhyme irregularly: line 9 rhymes with line 13, line 10 rhymes with line 11 and line 12 rhymes with line 14. Also, we can notice that some lines are tabbed according to the arrangement of the rhymes

In conclusion, Christina Rossetti was a great female poet in the 19th century who wrote many interesting poems on various topics. Her poem “Remember” is a very deep and ironical poem that has ideas of love, death and remembrance. By reading and analyzing Christina Rossetti’s poems, one can understand her past and also her beliefs about life.

The Victorians saw poetry itself and its muses as feminine, making it doubly difficult for women to be authors of poems and so effectively silencing them . Christina Rossetti’s contemporary female poets placed themselves outside of the sphere of male poetry by forging a unique discourse of their own from within the patriarchal form, but they were also bound by the assumptions and the expectations of the time. This gendering of poetry often trivialised women’s writing, as poetry was ‘too high and great’ for women. Women poets were therefore forced to reach beyond these barriers, and in effect manipulate one of the forms of their own suppression and repression. Christina Rossetti, Alice Meynell, Katherine Tynan and Elizabeth Barrett Browning dedicated poems to one another in a uniquely female dialogue. Many women wrote poetry despite the many obstacles, and anthologies and journals of women’s poetry encouraged a distinctive conversation between female poets. Isobel Armstrong also claims women used ‘expressive’ language to represent their emotions and experiences, and the representational symbols on the page were paradoxically both a means of expression and part of the forces of repression. She proposes that poetry involves the ‘movement outwards, the breaking of barriers’.

Christina Rossetti entered into poetic conversations with her contemporaries, including the poem ‘L.E.L’ which was written in response to Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem ‘L.E.L’s Last Question’. Browning was often critical of her contemporaries, criticising women ‘versifiers’ rather than ‘true poets’, and the poem describes the plaintive cries of a lonely but self-absorbed woman who wrote ‘one tune of love’. Barrett Browning’s L.E.L calls to her friends from ‘across the waves’ with the constant wistful refrain at the end of each stanza ‘Do you think of me as I think of you?’. Browning argues that L.E.L should have asked ‘Do you praise me, O my land?’ concentrating externally rather than looking to her ‘inward sense’. Christina Rossetti’s poem offers a more sympathetic view as her struggles with her own temperament and depressions create a deeper understanding. Christina claimed that Browning would have been a better poet had she been less contented and ‘happy’; a euphemism for being married Christina’s poem ‘L.E.L’ describes a woman laughing in ‘sport and jest’ in public rooms, but yet in ‘solitary rooms’ she turns her ‘face in silence to the wall’.

The speaker sees that others ‘all love, are loved’ and ‘play the pleasant parts’. They cannot guess the depth of her loneliness and misery, or that her heart ‘was breaking for a little love’. Christina’s narration changes to the first person in the second stanza, as she empathises deeply with the dead poet’s emotions and the way they relate to her own troubled emotions and experiences.

The poetic differences between Christina Rossetti and Browning are emphasised by the contrasting emotions and images in Browning’s poem. Browning concentrates on the external signs of death and the ‘shadow’ on L.E.L’s ‘sepulchre’, and there is implicit criticism of L.E.L’s need for love and compassion. Browning’s lack of sentimentality is partly due to her marital contentment, which also meant that she did not have to sacrifice her creative impulses within the constraints of the female sphere. Christina Rossetti understood L.E.L’s essential sadness, while Browning’s poem shows impatience with the woman who failed to cope alone, or wait for her friends to find their ‘answering breath’ across the ‘mocking ocean’. Browning uses aspects of male rationality to create a new form of female expression.

Katherine Tynan was a ‘lyric poet’ who wrote close to the ‘heart of nature’; a convention considered appropriate for women. Tynan’s poem ‘Maternity’ eulogises the joys of motherhood, ignoring the potential difficulties and struggles that can accompany childbirth and child-rearing. The poem has two conventional stanzas of similar length, although the end rhymes are discordant, and there is frequent use of eye-rhyme and assonance. Tynan focuses on mother’s milk, as ‘her body’ is the child’s ‘food’ evoking the link between the parasitic needs of the child. The mother yields her child ‘precious milk and food’ and her body produces ‘life’ not ‘death’. Motherhood is seen as a ‘sacred’ state as the female body is the source of birth and continuing life, while motherhood is seen as an acceptable form of creative release. The visceral elements of the first stanza give way to emotional and abstract images in the second stanza. Tynan suggests that this maternal love renews her ‘heart’ which expands to make room for ‘all earth’s hapless brood’. The discordant rhyme and physicality of the earlier stanza gives way in the final two lines to a traditional Victorian image of motherhood, as the speaker has a ‘broken heart’ which ‘wounds’ for all ‘earth’s hurt children’.

Christina Rossetti’s ‘Life and Death’ highlights similar concepts, but there is little sentimental satisfaction to the poem. The speaker claims ‘life is not sweet’, while the caesura defines the importance of ‘one day’ when things will change for the better. The speaker looks forward to death, as it will be ‘sweet/To shut our eyes and die’. The traditional beauty of nature has no impact, including the ‘wild flowers’, ‘flitting butterfly’ and ‘happy lark’. Christina claims that one day ‘it will be good/To die, then live again’ in the wonder of heaven. Meanwhile she ‘yearns to sleep’ so that the ‘shrunk leaves’ of autumn and death no longer affect her. She sees nothing but the ‘dead refuse stubble clothe the plain’ and she desires to be ‘asleep’ in soulsleep, avoiding the ‘risk’ and the ‘pain’. Both Tynan and Rossetti highlight the more brutal aspects of nature and humanity, including the difficult concepts of life and death. Christina focuses on an introspective view of the bleakness of life which can only be resolved through soulsleep and death. Tynan embraces the traditional female sphere and subverts it to a degree, while Christina’s religious conviction allows her to discuss difficult concepts without necessarily resorting to traditional female imagery.

Alice Meynell was another popular poet who participated in the poetic dialogue between the women. Her work showed ’emotion’ and ‘reflection’ in ‘balanced harmony’; important attributes for a Victorian woman poet. Her poem ‘Song’ is an elusive and intensely metaphorical poem, written in four stanzas with regular lines and end-rhymes. Reference to water and tides suggests a deep range of conflicting female emotions, as the ‘tide doth roll’ and ‘floods the caves’, while the depth of love ‘comes filling with happy waves’ which opens the ‘sea-shore’ of the ‘soul’. The second stanza describes secret hidden places ‘out of sight’ which ‘constrains in dim embraces’ as hidden and repressed feelings and emotions are allowed to surface, and the poetic language allows the rhythms of the ‘repressed semiotic’ to emerge. The speaker has no ‘secrets’ to be kept, while the limitless expanse of the boundless ocean ‘fills’ all with Christ’s love.

Christina Rossetti uses different imagery to express the depth of faith and love. In ‘Heaven Overarches’ she suggests that the vast expanse of sea and sky encompasses the ‘earth sadness and sea-bitterness’. Heaven reaches over all and the speaker imagines a time when there is ‘no more sea’ or barren wilderness’ as she slips into the oblivion and the unity of spirit and identity in soulsleep. She urges the reader to ‘look up with me until we see/The day break and the shadows flee’. She suggests that the pains and frustrations of the day will not matter, as ‘tomorrow’ offers redemption. Both poems use expansive metaphors to suggest limitless faith and God’s love, but Alice Meynell’s poem is more formally and conventionally organised with dense metaphors and condensed language. Christina in contrast, uses a variety of beautiful and simple metaphors to emphasise feeling, and the descriptive and alliterative language highlights her attachment to God’s love and the depth of emotion that it inspires. Both use the traditional imagery of sea and sky, but employ different conventions to inspire emotions and meaning.

Meynell’s sonnet ‘Renouncement’ focuses on love and longing and refers to God as a dream-like and illicit lover. Like many of her contemporaries, she refers to Christ as a lover to whom she wants to escape. Meynell claims that she must not think of the ‘love of thee’ in ‘blue Heaven’s delight’. She suggests that daydreaming of divine love is to be avoided, but that it can also be voiced. She asserts that ‘thoughts of thee wait hidden’ and she must ‘stop short of thee the whole day long’. The sestet evokes the delight of ‘sleep’ and the ‘night’ which allows all ‘bonds’ to ‘lose apart’. The speaker embraces the ‘first dream’ as she runs and is ‘gathered to thy heart’.

Christina Rossetti also refers explicitly to her ‘Heavenly Lover’ in the poem ‘Til To-Morrow’. She speaks of ‘longing and desire’, wishing ‘farewell’ to ‘all things that die and fail and tire’. The second stanza is irregular in length, drawing direct attention to the strong emotions expressed. She dismisses ‘youth and useless pleasure’ while the alliterative ‘glow-worms’ and ‘gleaming’ and repeated end-rhymes highlight the density of expression. The alliteration continues as she says ‘farewell to all shows that fade’, expressing her ‘joy’ in ‘tomorrow’ when she will see heaven ‘glowing’. Both poems address Christ as a lover through the use of religious imagery, in a way that would not have been acceptable to had they been examining earthly love. The religious genre allows them to move beyond the rigid structure of the female sphere, and to speak to one another in dream-like and sensuous states.

The act of writing allowed women’s voices to be heard and provided them with a public forum. Christina Rossetti’s individual use of metaphor, alliteration and the doubling of ideas and images provide a unique type of discourse that reflects Rossetti’s fractured sense of identity and her concerns and experiences. Meynell and Tynan use different images and concepts to focus on the female aspects of maternity and faith which were an acceptable source of discussion for women writers. Elizabeth Barrett Browning harnessed male rationality and logic in her work in order to manipulate the genre and top move beyond the forces of female suppression. The women were concerned primarily with their own discourse and ideas which effectively removed them from competing within the male sphere. They manipulated and attempted to dominate the instruments of their repression in different ways, in order to express their individual desires and drives through poetic language.

One of the more interesting results from the relationship between writers and their readers lies in the transcendental nature of the work they produce. The work writers leave behind will always be left open to interpretation by future generations of their readers. What I find fascinating is the writer, however, can never fully grasp the historical and cultural implications their writing may have across time, political and socio-economic movements and international borders. When Victorian era poet Christina Rossetti wrote her famous narrative poem Goblin Market, published in 1862, she did so without an inkling of the twenty-first century schools of thought surrounding feminism, queer theory, theology and consumerism that would be applied to her work. Regardless of her original intentions, several scholarly articles agree the text does lend itself to a feminist interpretation through her representation of heroines Lizzie and Laura. British author and biographer Kathleen Jones puts into words this far-sighted assignation of meaning while still working within the text itself: “Modern feminist scholarship has placed Christina’s poetry firmly within the ‘aesthetics of renunciation’, to quote Gilbert and Gubar in The Madwoman in the Attic, and has focused on the subversive elements in ‘Goblin Market’ and in her earlier poetry where her articulation of the struggle for a voice within a creed which consistently denied it to her, and a self-hood which at the same time must be self-less, articulates the central conflict of a woman writer in the nineteenth century”. If we accept Jones’ statement at face value we must consider how she reached this conclusion.

In this essay I plan on addressing how Goblin Market, a text written under the restrictions of the nineteenth century, works to elucidate ideals of feminine agency and restrictions through Laura and Lizzie. How might the motivations and actions of Laura and Lizzie relate to Christina Rossetti and her contemporaries’ ideas surrounding a nascent feminist movement developing in 19th-century Great Britain that have allowed others to consider her? For the purposes of this research paper I found a sufficient amount of published articles that examine Rossetti’s Goblin Market through the lens of 21st century feminist themes, sisterhood and the transition from girlhood to womanhood. Even though historically Rossetti never expressly stated Goblin Market was meant to be an exploration of the nascent feminist movement occurring during the late 19th century several others have picked up on the same feminist thread I hope to contribute to.

Christina Rossetti completed Goblin Market on April 27, 1859, which was coincidentally her mother’s birthday, and had it published in 1862 in a poetry collection by her titled Goblin Market and Other Poems that featured illustrations drawn by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was a poet in his own right and a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Goblin Market follows the form of a narrative poem and employs a rhyme scheme that conveys sentimentality among sisters Lizzie and Laura, menace building among the goblin men and lists of foods, specifically fruits. “Metrically, the poem is highly irregular, but its rhyme scheme is relatively consistent, being composed overwhelmingly of couplets or triplets contained within a handful of lines”. Rossetti, as previously mentioned, was heavily influenced by her relationships with her family in her work. She notably engaged in friendly literary competition with her brother Dante Gabriel but not much was widely known about her relationship with her eldest sister Maria Francesca, which we can assume was included in her representation of sisters in Goblin Market. “The dedication of Goblin Market to “M.F.R.” offers one more clue. Christina was not accustomed to promiscuous or casual dedications of this kind, and as William wrote, the inscription certainly suggests that she had “some particular occurrence in her mind.” Though he could not identify this, he did point out that the “two poems which immediately preceded Goblin Market in date show a more than normal amount of melancholy and self-reproach”. Rossetti drew inspiration from Anna Eliza Bray, her mother Frances Rossetti’s cousin, who authored a collection of stories based on the fantastical. Women, her mother and sister Mary predominately, seem to factor as strong influences in Rossetti’s life and many of her family members were not only artistically inclined but quite talented which clearly shaped Rossetti’s writing. “Its tales were given even wider currency in 1854 when Mrs. Bray published A Peep at the Pixies, or Legends of the West, in which she retold some of the stories for a younger audience.

This book was certainly known to Christina, who originally called her own poem “A Peep at the Goblins,” as she explained later, “in imitation of my Cousin Mrs Bray’s ‘A Peep at the Pixies”. Before publication, the alternative title Goblin Market was suggested by Gabriel, anxious as always to diminish the derivative elements in Christina’s work”. At the crux of Goblin Market is what becomes a lifesaving relationship between sisters and taking Rossetti’s close relationship to her family into account it is understandable that she focuses on the familial bonds at play between two women protagonists. The poem celebrates sisterhood, so a dedication to Maria is obviously appropriate”. This dedication confirms Christina and Maria’s relationship served as a blueprint for the relationship between Lizzie and Laura. That Goblin Market became the most well-known of Christina Rossetti’s works is telling of her ability to connect with audiences through this poem, where the real strength lies in the powerful bond between sisters she was able to convey. Jan Marsh explores Christina Rossetti’s struggles to become a published poet and her admiration of joining her contemporary women writers to achieve a similar level of success. “Career models were provided by Felicia Hemans, Letitia Landon (“L.E.L.”), and Elizabeth Barrett” (Marsh 233). In understanding her motivations to attain a brilliant career and become a self-sufficient member within the limited society she inhabited we can understand that as paving a way towards autonomy in line with other feminists striving for the opportunity to do the same, whether out of necessity or for personal fulfillment. Rossetti never expressly stated an allegiance to the developing women’s suffrage movement although she did champion animal rights and raising the age of consent to protect children forced into prostitution. Both causes listed required her to hold a position of some power within her community that allowed her to advocate for the causes dear to her. This is a form of feminism in action, whether she expressly admit to it or not, that is apparent in many of her poems most notably Goblin Market.

Lizzie and Laura are sisters and the central figures of Rossetti’s poem where they are characterized as being typical “maidens’ who perform that role through performative, gendered acts of industry within their home. The lines “Fed their poultry, sat and sew’d; /Talk’d as modest maidens should:” provide a pastoral scene of a traditional and conventional life both sisters lead, as they should according to the conventions upheld by British society in the nineteenth century. They both appear to abide to certain rules or expectations as modest maidens until Laura breaks that contract by purchasing and eating the fruit of the goblin men. The transaction involved Laura clipping a golden curl in exchange for access to the fruit peddled by the goblin men. This exchange is deeply rooted in a religious sentiment similar to ideas shared by Emile Durkheim’s book In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) where he posits that the two substances of the human body perceived as sacred are hair and blood. Rossetti, a devout follower of the Anglo-Catholic movement of the time, understands the religious significance of this corporal exchange is not lost her intended audience. While Laura defiles her body through that action she exhibits an autonomy of self to do as she pleases in this moment with her body. Ownership has shifted from the suffocating restrictions of being a “modest maiden” to Laura as an individual, as a woman. The desire to experience more beyond her current circumstances was awoken in Laura and when the opportunity presented itself she made the choice to indulge that yearning, “Curious Laura chose to linger/Wondering at each merchant man” much to Lizzie’s chagrin. Laura satisfies her piqued curiosity by eating the fruit sold to her by the goblin merchants only to find herself dissatisfied and craving more, “Then sat up in passionate yearning./And gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept/As if her heart would break.

These symptoms mark the beginning of Laura’s extended list of ailments caused by ingesting the goblin men’s fruit. A transgression of this magnitude, a young woman who is acted on her desires and made use of her body to fulfill those desires must bear serious consequences. There is a poignancy written into the poem by a sympathetic Rossetti, apparent in Laura’s weeping and feeling as if her heart will break, perhaps inspired by her work with St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in Highgate, a charitable institution for the reclamation of “fallen” women. In order to discuss the gender politics in Goblin Market an acknowledgement must be made of the autobiographical influences in a poem that depicts a “fallen” sister in Laura and creates a space for the inverse to occur in her sister Lizzie. Lizzie’s strengths work as a foil to Laura’s perceived weaknesses yet both sisters have sufficient agency and privilege to act out their inner desires. Both show courage and strong wills yet it is Lizzie who triumphs in rescuing her sister and through her their conventional lives. By establishing Lizzie and Laura as being diametrically opposed throughout most of the poem which in turn creates most of the conflict that occurs. Helena Michie posits the range and complexities of feminine characters are successfully explored through sisters because they exhibit natural differences which we can see highlighted in Laura and Lizzie. Other themes not discussed in detail in this paper but brought up by Michie include sexuality and lesbianism, the use of repetition in the form of the poem to during passages where the sisters only interact with one another highlight sexual tensions and an idyllic ending where the relationship between sisters is exalted above their respective husbands and children.

Yet before the sisters attain their idyllic ending, they must first overcome the trials of womanhood. The decision to take action is not taken lightly by Lizzie. By doing so, she knowingly changes the narrative and the course of their lives. The following passage depicts the moment Lizzie realized she must step into the role of savior that was not typically assumed by a woman at this time by assessing her sisters failing health and deciding to make the decision to lead a fully autonomous life independent of societal norms and expectations. Before becoming Laura’s redeemer, Lizzie must undergo her own transformation.

This passage is heavy with descriptions that indicate an impending transformation is occurring within Lizzie. The choice of “weighed no more” illuminates Lizzie’s judicious nature which allows her to proceed to make a balanced decision having considered both outcomes between action and inaction resulting in her decision to take a risk and confront what she has been taught to avoid in the hopes of restoring her dying sister to her original state. Lizzie has the forethought to bring a silver penny with her in order to circumvent paying for the goblin men’s fruit with her body. She is wiser for her sister’s error and uses this knowledge as a shield against an unwanted transaction. Money is another form of attaining agency acknowledged within the poem, however we never learn how this particular silver penny was earned. Lizzie travels under the cover of twilight, a time defined as “a state in which things are strange, mysterious or secret; a state that exists on the dividing line between two things” by the Oxford Learner’s dictionary and waits for the Goblin men near a running brook which sets up an ideal location for a supernatural meeting. Finally, Lizzie’s metamorphosis into a woman who can save her sister and bring her back from her brink of death is completed when she sheds her former identity to listen and look for the first time in her life.

Emily Blair references sections of Rossetti’s Goblin Market in order to support her argument elucidating the relationship between women in close familial units and the limitations they face under the male gaze. Blair introduces the connection between Rossetti’s Jeanie in Goblin Market and her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem Jenny which provides interesting historical context illuminating how Christina perceived women’s roles. The more interesting point brought up by Blair is her piggybacking on an idea of Catherine Maxwell’s: “Mindful of Jeanie,” obtains what she wants from the goblins without succumbing to their powers. It is Lizzie, not Jeanie, who becomes Laura’s precursor, and “remembering Jeanie” becomes a way of reminding oneself about the necessary dangers of negotiating with men’s texts and men’s images of women. In Gaskell’s novel too, “remembering Jeanie” reminds the reader of the necessity of negotiating with men’s texts and men’s images of women”. Here we see the idea of a gendered negotiation at play and introduces the argument that Lizzie is a redeemer of fallen women, represented in the poem by Laura, and how they both work out their role as women who seem to obtain what they set out to accomplish. Now to focus on the construct of feminism through the didactic actions of Lizzie; she suffers at the hands of the goblin men who through their tricks and eventually violence try to break Lizzie’s will. They see her as a woman they can cajole or manipulate into performing in a way they would like her to and when they are unsuccessful leave her bruised and bloodied. Laura gets to indulge in the Goblin men’s fruit and through her sister’s sacrifices is able to return from death or life as a cautionary tale to other young women to a perfectly unexceptionally ordinary life.

Jill Rappaport supports the idea there is an inherent consumeristic value surrounding the female body, specifically Laura’s exchange of a lock of hair for the fruits sold by the goblin men. She also compares Lizzie with acting as a religious savior who manages to work through her gendered limitations during this time period to successfully save her sister from death. Albert D. Pionk explores the commodification of women’s bodies, fruit, and money all within the Victorian market place developing at the time Goblin Market was published. Pionk asks that we work past prior interpretations of Goblin Market as solely a Christian allegory and instead offers up a “hybrid reading” that includes delving into “heroic sisterhood” and “redemption in a market driven society”. Similarly to Marsh, there is a focus on Rossetti’s motivations in penning this poem and historical influences. There also a focus on how the meter and form of the poem work to convey emotion and action during the most crucial points, serving to emphasize the moralistic message Rossetti wishes to impart on the reader.

Rife with examples that support the assertion that Rossetti has written a text works as a feminist poem to current readers, as supported by Janet Galligani Casey, “It is only in the second half of the twentieth century, with the emergence of feminist literary criticism and new critical theories from France, that the work of women like Christina Rossetti has been rediscovered.” Casey explores feminist themes within Goblin Market by providing biographical information about its author’s correspondences with women’s rights thinkers of the time. Rossetti puts into words concrete statements that support feminist ideals. “In a letter to Augusta Webster, an eminent writer and advocate of women’s suffrage, Rossetti asserts that maternal love makes a woman “not a giantess or a heroine but at once and full grown a hero and giant”. This example proves Rossetti wrote her most well-known narrative poem without an inkling of the 21st-century schools of thought surrounding feminism, queer theory, theology and consumerism, there is conclusive proof in this scholarly article that agrees the text does lend itself to a feminist interpretation of heroines Lizzie and Laura. Casey undercuts her initial argument, sharing Rossetti had no intention of penning a “feminist manifesto” with Goblin Market and instead meant to show women are able to take on several roles, even those traditional held by men. Both Lizzie and Laura pass the Bechdel test with flying colors because they often discuss their chores, the adverse effects of dealing with Goblin men who do not operate in the same way as human men and ultimately there is no mention of husbands at the close of the poem, we only know they have both become wives. In its essence, this is a poem about women that is for readers regardless of gender making it a shining example of what feminist writings aspire to be. Boldly highlighting the various roles women play without being perceived as exclusionary to male readers.

Taking biographical details from Rossetti’s life and a resurgence in scholarship surrounding Goblin Market from the past three decades into consideration we can see that Goblin Market has clearly attained its enduring legacy because of Rossetti’s deliberate multivalence assignation of meaning. Every reader has a unique experience reading the poem, adding a new interpretation because of Rossetti’s accomplishments as a dexterous writer. Casey alludes to the multitudinous interpretations available in Goblin Market in her research: “However, Goblin Market is also recognized as a work which successfully sustains several levels of meaning simultaneously; its rich “suggestive,” first commented upon by William Michael Rossetti, prompts numerous and varied interpretations”. This openness to interpretations opens a window to interpretations of feminist readings comfortably. Rossetti’s poem is a living document scholars deem worthy of reading and working with centuries after its publication. This is the longevity and success Rossetti hoped to attain in life and is her due as one of the greatest writers to come out of the Victorian era, woman or man. By attaining this level of success she has proven through her life’s work if not in writing that she is a feminist icon for her ability to leverage her education and talent into a career. Regardless of her self-imposed restrictions and religious fanaticism she was not confined to writing for herself or family members, she wrote for society at large and was published multiple times in her lifetime, reaching all audiences and reads by many of the best writers of the time. She followed her passions in writing if not in life and was able to create poetry that helped shape and redefine writers of the Victorian Era. Largely considered the natural successor to Elizabeth Barrett-Browning is no small feat. She carried the gauntlet by producing work that was true to her morals and were rooted in personal relationships and experiences. Therein lied her true power and that is how she accessed her abilities to share with the world.

Conclusion

She was part of an impressive roster of women writers of this period who were well aware of how to use their gender through writing to command respect, “Specifically, many of the books on female conduct written by nineteenth- century women prove that these writers did not always perceive themselves as impotent. Their works consistently question the traditional sexual dichotomy by revealing a belief in the power — especially the moral power — of women”. In subverting traditional gender roles, Goblin Market will continue to serve feminine agency and empowerment.

Two poems, Remember by Christina Rossetti and Funeral blues by W.H Auden have the same motif of loss yet are almost the antithesis of one another in execution of attitudes to death. The speaker, Christina Rossetti in her poem Remember entreats her lover for remembrance after death yet speaks with a poignant realism in the acceptance that he may forget her for a while, seeing it as ultimately better for him to “forget and smile” than to “remember and be sad.” It appears Rossetti is optimistic that once one has died, they vicariously live on in other minds hence the repetition of “Remember”. Contrarily, the speaker W.H Auden, in his poem Funeral Blues speaks the immensities of his grief in reaction to the loss of his partner and of his irritation to the worlds refusal to slow down to pay respects and grieve alongside him. He presents loss as deeply isolating as he has lost his “North… South… East… and West.” without guidance and cut off from the world as it continues, he does not display the same shift in attitude as Rossetti and so is greatly pessimistic throughout.

Each poet takes a distinct approach to presenting their attitudes to loss through careful use of form and structure. Rossetti’s Remember is a Petrarchan Sonnet, in the octet Rossetti renounces physical body and contemplates loss, “no more hold my hand” in the view that death is merely physical. This is supported by Rossetti’s use of “remember” and “when”. The sonnet also utilizes the classic Petrarchan rhyme scheme until the volta, marked by “yet” into the sestet where the rhyme scheme is original. The pattern Rossetti writes in (CDD ECE) is disruptive, hinting at the speaker’s uncomfortable thoughts surrounding loss, this, paired with the rhyming of “had” and “sad”, highlights the unsettling disjunction between remembering and forgetting in loss. In the sestet the speaker, ironic to the title, renounces remembrance “better by far to forget.” In her transition from pleas for remembrance into the realisation that the memory may bring her lover pain she is selfless, “do not grieve” In an optimistic view of eventual remembrance. The overall meter, iambic pentameter is strict overall suggesting restraint of her true feelings. However, the slight shift in lines 1, 2, 7 and 13 hint at her passion towards the reader.

In contrast to this, funeral blues is a melancholic, tragic elegy. The poem contains 4 quatrains of elegiac stanza, with the rhyming heroic couplets elevating the speaker’s tragic reaction to loss. Each quatrain represents a different area of his loss, the first two are domestic focusing on the impersonal home and public reactions and his irritation towards a lack thereof, “put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves.” with the dove a symbol of peace and purity, presenting his desire for quiet in his healing. The last two quatrains are incredibly personal and concentrate on the loss of faith “I was wrong.” and nature parallel to the loss of W. H Auden’s lover. The speaker is finite and conclusive, the 4 elements mean nothing anymore and are exasperating in their infinite presence. In similarity to Rossetti’s Remember, the meter of funeral blues is broadly iambic pentameter. W.H Auden however makes a vastly variated use of this meter, the deviations and shifts create the notion that Auden is striving yet lacking the ability to control his writing, further proving his definitive anguish and heartbreak.

The poems are largely different in tone, mood, and atmosphere corresponding to their individual views and expectancies for life after death. Rossetti’s Remember is incredibly optimistic for the subject matter of loss due to her placement of hope in eventual remembrance. In the octet her earnest and intense passion override her tone, it is imperative to Rossetti that the reader holds onto her memory in the eventuality of her death, “Remember me when I am gone away,”. However, after the volta into the sestet Rossetti has an extreme change of heart and her tone is gentle and considerate, “yet if you should forget me for a while”, Rossetti no longer sees this as an ultimate negative as it allows her lover to feel happiness. Contrastingly, W.H Auden holds extreme pessimism throughout. Auden has no faith in the continuation of life beyond our world, his use of monosyllabic short sentences paired with caesural pauses, “: I was wrong.” proves his tragic, excruciating view that death is finite and absolute, Auden Is frank, honest, and direct. The speaker is at odds to Rossetti in mood and reaction, he is arguably selfish and bitter in his lover’s loss, “The stars are not wanted now: Put out every one;” Auden takes it upon himself to speak for everyone as if the world revolves around his feelings in belief that the world is no longer pure.

Whilst the poets are vastly different in their attitudes to loss, they use alike devices to display them to the reader. Christina Rossetti creates a peaceful perspective of death in remember, “Gone far away into the silent land;” This metaphor is a euphemism, it lessens the frightening thoughts of death and places distance between herself and the living, paired with the repetition of “gone away” further proving the separation of herself in physical form and in spiritual form. The repetition of “remember” has different desired effect as the sonnet progresses, as in the sestet the subtle return “afterwards remember” to the first word of the poem along with the title, gently transitions from the then use of imperative into a sympathetic, selfless relationship once again between remember and forget. Rossetti’s imagery of “darkness and corruption” foresee her view that once her lover has finished grieving and there is only a “vestige” of her left, that she can then fully and freely live on after the tragedy of her death as a spiritual body.

The effects of Rossetti’s use of language and imagery to portray her expectations of loss greatly contrast those of W.H Auden despite similar techniques. In Funeral Blues, Auden also begins with an imperative, “stop all the clocks” emphasizing the speaker’s loss whilst also serving two separate purposes as a double entendre. Firstly, it signifies Auden’s desire for the world to freeze. Secondly, it begins the theme of silence in the first quatrain proving the speaker’s irritable mood in response to loss. W.H Auden also uses personification, proving the wildness of his mind in the interest of believing what he would like to hear… that the world has turned to pay respects, “let the traffic policemen wear cotton gloves.” an otherwise natural uniform. The speaker in the powerful, final stanza of them poem, figuratively creates ultimate darkness, ending the poem with Auden in a deep, solemn anguish, rejecting all sustenance in an extreme reaction to his tragic, thought to be infinite loss.

In essence, these two poems whilst sharing a theme of loss are incredibly different. Christina Rossetti, in her dream world comforts herself in the belief that she will live on in her lover’s mind in peace. However, I have preference towards the honest, plain-spoken, and candid attitude of W.H Auden towards loss as I believe that his version of events displays powerful passion.