Victorian Visual Culture

Christina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market” has been lauded as “the gay poem” over the course of my semester in Victorian Literature. Whenever I mention that Rossetti’s work is on my syllabus to another person familiar with queer literature, I am met with sparkling eyes and an eager smile. “Oh, that poem!” they say. “Just wait until you read it.”

I was excited by the poem’s glowing reviews, but skeptical about the actual amount of queer content in “Goblin Market.” I have repeatedly been forewarned about my Victoria-era readings’ excessive queer content, but am disappointed again and again to find that this content usually amounts to an especially close relationship between two characters, an ambiguous line or two of dialogue, or some unconfirmed allegations about the author’s sexuality that are hardly reflected in their work. I assumed that “Goblin Market” would be similarly vague, leading to a few minutes of class discussion about Victorian societal norms and female friendships before the closure of the topic. Still, I began reading Rossetti’s work with a watery sense of hope.

“Goblin Market” centers two female characters, who are apparently sisters: Lizzie and Laura. When the girls see the fantastical fruit market run by goblins that habitually appears in their town at dusk, Laura is tempted by their wares, despite Lizzie’s warnings that buying from the goblins will cause her to waste away and die. Laura ignores Lizzie’s warnings, eventually paying the goblins with a lock of her golden hair and gorging herself on the fresh fruit that they sell. Then, as Lizzie had said, Laura slowly wastes away, longing for more fruit but unable to find the magical marketplace for a second time — it appears that vulnerable shoppers can only eat at the market once. After Laura seems on the point of death, Lizzie becomes desperate and seeks out the market herself, trying to pay for fruit — with a coin, rather than her hair — that she can bring back to Laura. The goblins are angry that Lizzie herself refuses their fruit, and try to force her to eat it, smearing it all over her in the process. Lizzie resists, and the goblins finally allow her to escape home. Lizzie gives Laura the dregs of fruit that are mashed over her body, and Laura faints away, disgusted by the goblin fruit’s true foul taste, overwhelmed by her experiences, and finally set free from the demonic spell. When she wakes up, she is healthy again, and she and Lizzie later part ways to happily marry and have children, saved from the wasting disease of the goblins.

After hearing this summary, many would argue that “Goblin Market” has no queer connotations at all. Firstly, and most obviously, Lizzie and Laura are written as sisters. I initially wondered if this was a term of endearment rather than a marker of actual blood relation; but, I soon found that Christina Rossetti had dedicated “Goblin Market” to her own sister, Maria Rossetti (Rossetti 884). The poem also ends with these words of wisdom: “For there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather; / To cheer one on the tedious way, / To fetch one if one goes astray, / To lift one if one totters down, / To strengthen whilst one stands” (20). This cheerful passage, combined with the poem’s dedication, seems that it can only signpost a platonic, sisterly relationship between Lizzie and Laura. Though the poem never explicitly states that Lizzie and Laura are really related, it seems likely that Rossetti intended for them to be. The somewhat abrupt happily-ever-after ending, in which Lizzie and Laura marry unidentified men and become mothers, also works in conjunction with these elements to firmly root Rossetti’s female leads in the world of heterosexuality. Despite a harrowing magical adventure in their youth, the girls clearly grow up to be functioning members of Victorian society, with their escapades reduced to “Those pleasant days long gone / Of not-returning time” and their purity restored in the form of golden hair and a desire to complete household chores (Rossetti 19).

Even if queer relationships were not at the forefront of Rossetti’s mind as she created “Goblin Market,” it seems certain that there is some intended double meaning behind Lizzie and Laura’s perils. It is possible that Laura’s burning need for the goblins’ fruit is meant to represent struggles with addiction; Rossetti writes that Laura “gnashed her teeth for baulked desire … She no more swept the house … But sat down listless in the chimney-nook / And would not eat” as her hair grayed, her health dwindled, and her body wasted away (12-13). It also is possible that Rossetti intended to analogize sex work, or extramarital sex. Rossetti herself worked at a penitentiary for “fallen women” around the time she wrote “Goblin Market,” and may have wanted to represent the issues that the women she met there faced (Black 517). Lizzie makes a reference to a former victim of the goblins, who “should have been a bride; / But who for joys brides hope to have / Fell sick and died” (Rossetti 13). This seems to refer to a woman who threw away her respectable marriage prospects in order to eat the “forbidden fruit” that the goblins offered up, a clear allusion to extramarital sex. Additionally, the goblins’ behavior toward Lizzie and Laura is overtly sexualized: Laura literally sells a part of her body — her hair — in order to gain access to the “fruits which that unknown orchard bore,” which she “sucked and sucked and sucked … she sucked until her lips were sore” (Rossetti 8). When Lizzie visits the goblins, they “hugged her and kissed her, / Squeezed and caressed her” to compel her to “suck” their fruit (Rossetti 14). When she refused, they “tore her gown and soiled her stocking … Held her hands and squeezed their fruits / Against her mouth to make her eat” (Rossetti 15). Here, the fresh fruit — a rarity for most Victorians — seems to represent both an incentive that the women are willing to commodify themselves for, as well as a phallic tool of subversion that the goblins use to control the desperate young women who seek them out.

Though there are several interpretations of the meaning behind “Goblin Market,” reading the text as a queer narrative is another valid route of analysis. Despite being labeled as sisters, Lizzie and Laura act in ways that are undeniably romantic. Most prominently, Lizzie’s delivery method of choice for the fruit she retrieves from the goblin market for Laura is explicitly queer. After seeing that the fruit is crushed over her body, she asks Laura, “Did you miss me? / Come and kiss me. / Never mind my bruises, / Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices … Eat me, drink me, love me; Laura, make much of me” (Rossetti 17). Laura, accordingly, “kissed and kissed and kissed her: / Tears once again / Refreshed her shrunken eyes, / Dropping like rain / After long sultry drouth; / Shaking with aguish fear, and pain, / She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth” (Rossetti 18). Undoubtedly, Laura’s enthusiastic ravishment of her savior seems more than sisterly; it is certainly a more direct portrayal of love than most other queer Victorian texts I have come across. The girls are also described as kissing each other on two other occasions in this short poem, and are said to sleep “​​cheek to cheek and breast to breast / Locked together in one nest” (Rossetti 10). “Goblin Market” even opens with the two lying hidden in the tall grass by the brook, “close together … With clasping arms and cautioning lips, / With tingling cheeks and finger tips,” as Lizzie “veiled her blushes” (Rossetti 6). Though of course plenty of non-romantic relationships allow for physical affection, Lizzie and Laura’s prolonged entanglements have an overwhelmingly sapphic association. Lizzie’s solo journey to the goblin market also speaks to her deep love for Laura. Despite knowing that she risked her own life, Lizzie chose to value Laura’s salvation over her own needs and fears, and did not acquiesce to the goblins until she had accomplished her mission of collecting fruit for her beloved. The use of fruit as a symbol also connotes Eve’s biblical temptation for the original “forbidden fruit,” representing her disobedience to God. In this context, the fruit that Laura lusts after may represent another disobedient, sinful desire: her love for Lizzie.

Christina Rossetti may not have intended for “Goblin Market” to be an allegory for queer joy that was oppressed by Victorian societal expectations. Yet, this is how I — and many others — choose to interpret her work. I don’t know what Rossetti was doing with her sister; but, to me, it seems as though Lizzie and Laura bear a romantic love for each other rather than a familial closeness. Queer readings of other Victorian works often rely on foggier pieces of evidence, from conversational subtexts to mysteriously broken engagements. When a poem like “Goblin Market” is discussed, and blatant acts of romantic love are described in detail, it seems fair to point unfamiliar readers toward it with eager smiles and sparkling eyes. “Oh, that poem!” I’ll say. “Just wait until you read it.”

Works Cited

Black, Joseph, editor. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Victorian Era. 2nd ed., vol. 5, Broadview Press, 2011.

Rossetti, Christina Georgina. The Complete Poems. Penguin Classics, 2001.