Sucking the Forbidden Fruit: Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market

About this episode

This episode explores Christina Rossetti's poem 'Goblin Market' and its themes of weirdness, repression, and Victorian culture.

Nobody expects the Victorian wombats! Given the title, listeners won’t be hugely surprised to hear there are goblins in today’s episode, but wombats!?!? Yes, the sleeper hits of this episode are our round, furry friends from Australia. Or, as the poet Christina Rossetti would put it in a poem to her family pet, gli umobatti . “Goblin Market” is already going to 11 on the weirdness scale, and we’ve said nothing of the fairies, goblins, sexual repression, feminine hysteria, class anxiety and evangelism coming your way. If you’re into High Victorian weirdness then, boy, this is the SLoB episode for you.  Christina Rossetti was the daughter of an exiled Italian radical and sister of the famous painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and “Goblin Market” is her hit poem from 1862. 1862 was, incidentally, the same year in which, across the Atlantic, Emily Dickinson sent her poems to T.W. Higginson (asking if they breathe) and Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, improvised a story about a girl called Alice going underground.   “Goblin Market” is a bizarre, rollicking, long poem about a young woman called Laura who “sucked and sucked and sucked” the “fruit globes” of some goblins…

People in this episode

Hosts: Sophie Gee, Jonty Claypole

Topics covered

• Victorian literature
• Christina Rossetti
• Goblin Market
• feminine hysteria
• class anxiety
• sexual repression
• bohemian art

Keywords

• Christina Rossetti
• Goblin Market
• Victorian literature
• feminine hysteria
• class anxiety
• sexual repression
• bohemian art

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Goblin Market, Alice

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