“Goblin Market”

• Originally Published: 1862
• Form/Meter: Experimental; alternating dactylic and trochaic feet
• Literary Devices: Irregular meter; zoomorphism; narrative poem
• Central Concern: Two sisters are tempted by the wares of sinister goblin men and must grapple with their varying responses to the goblins and the repercussions of their indulgence.

Christina Rossetti, Poet

• Bio: 1830-1894; daughter of an Italian Dante scholar who immigrated to England; educated by her governess-trained half-Italian, half-English mother; joined her sister and two brothers in successfully pursuing the literary arts; published first poems at age 17; devout Anglo-Catholic whose faith and interest in the Oxford Movement’s poetics had a major influence on her poetry, inspiring themes of fickle human love and the vanity of earthly pleasures; wrote more than one poem in the genre of fantasy-meets-moral-allegory that characterizes “Goblin Market”; refused to join her brother’s membership in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, though her poetry has been described as Pre-Raphaelite; volunteered in 1859 at the St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary for the reclamation of “fallen” women, work that may have influenced “Goblin Market”; was compared to her predecessor Elizabeth Barrett Browning later in her career
• Other Works: “After Death,” “A Birthday,” “Remember” (1862)

THEMES