Victorian Visual Culture

I want to attempt a close reading of two particular illustrations of Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market. But an interesting aspect of the analysis which I wish to conduct is that realm of slblinghood, as the illustrator is none other than Rosetti’s arguably more famous brother, Dante Gabriel Rosetti.

The Met’s website says this of the first illustration, “In August 1861, Rossetti proposed to the publisher Alexander Macmillan that he create”brotherly designs” to illustrate a volume of his sister Christina’s poetry. This drawing is reproduced on the title page of “The Goblin Market and Other Poems.” Finished by mid-December, the image was transfered to a wooden block by Rossetti, engraved by William J. Linton and printed and published in April 1862. As if in a fairy tale, we glimpse sisters sleeping in a curtained bed as goblins cavort in the background, the design echoing the related poem which treats temptation and addiction in a symbolic manner and evokes their strength through heightened, sensual verse. At an earlier moment in the story Lizzie manages to resist the goblins’s offer of luscious fruit, but Laura succumbs. The young women here sleep peacefully, unaware of the addictive substance that will soon bring Laura close to death and force her sister to undertake an heroic confrontation with the goblins.” The illustration is a direct reference to the line, “golden head by golden head,” depicting the girls in a tight embrace of affection as they rest in the safety of each other’s arms. Rosetti depicts the goblins as far-off figures, with little detail given to their characters. They rest in a circle, almost as if they represent the moon and stars who gaze in on the girls just a few lines later. It is fascinating to see this scene of sibling affection; the clear possibility of a queer relationship is especially compelling, and strangely so, when it comes from the brother of the woman who wrote the poem about such themes herself. It is also essential that this was the image used as the frontispiece for Christina’s poem. An illustrated depiction of women loving each other physically and emotionally is the first image associated with these versions of the text.

The second illustration is fascinating for close analysis. Still, it does not have as much to do with the sibling relationship as the image rests the majority of its focus upon the sisters, the first to fall prey to the goblin’s eerie calls, Laura. The illustration depicts Laura as if in a devilish covenant with the goblins’ animalistic figures. The image directly represents the curious transaction that occurs between Laura and the Goblins when she says she has no money to pay for the goblins ‘ wear. The goblins are symbolic representations of the wares they sell; there is a sense of the global market in their exotic and worldly natures, as well as a sense of the sensual market. Additionally, the goblins in the poem and in this image represent a violence towards women that tempts the young ladies as they tempt Laura and Lizzie. The represenation of the goblin in this illustration by Dante Gabriel Rosetti it quite facinating in the context of the larger poem because it implicates the reader as the person yearning for their desire of the fruits, as if Lizze is saying to us too, “you must not look at goblin men” (lines 42-44) but here we are looking at them ovwer and over as they are encribed upon this version of Goblin Market’s text.

Works cited

“Dante Gabriel Rossetti | Head by Golden Head, for “the Goblin Market.”” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/753512.

“Dante Gabriel Rossetti | “Buy from Us with a Golden Curl,” for “the Goblin Market.”” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/753513.

Rossetti, Christina Georgina. “Goblin Market, the Prince’s Progress, and Other Poems.” Https://Www.gutenberg.org/Files/16950/16950-8.Txt, www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16950/pg16950-images.html.

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