Goblin Market E-Book

Christina Rossetti

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 34

Beschreibung

The classic poem, Goblin Market (1862) by Christina Rossetti, tells the story of Lizzie and Laura, who are tempted by the fruit sold by the goblin merchants. In this fully illustrated and beautiful volume, illustrator Georgie McAusland brings the words and story to life. SHORTLISTED in the V&A Illustration Awards and the World Illustration Awards. Breathing new life into the Victorian tradition of illustrated poems, this book reads like a picture story book. The stunning illustrations illuminate and drive the narrative forward as in all good story books. It tells the tale of the two sisters drifting apart as Laura succumbs to the forbidden fruit sold by the goblins, but the bonds of sisterhood prove strong. The poem has fascinated for generations and been the subject of various interpretations. This illustrated version brings the words and story alive for a new generation. Christina Rossetti is considered the foremost female poet of her time, and her poetry still resonates with women's lives today, as she entwines themes of sexuality, sisterhood, love and temptation in her work. All of these themes are encapsulated in Goblin Market. The book includes an introduction to the poem by novelist Kirsty Gunn, so all readers – for pleasure or study – can understand its riches. 

Leseprobe

Contents

Introduction by Kirsty Gunn

Goblin Market

Other Poems by Christina Rossetti

What is it about long poems? Why do we love them, want to go into their worlds and stay there? What is it about knowing that the poem will not release us after a stanza or two but will hold us in its rhythms for page upon page that gives such pleasure?

Such questions are thrown up – and more besides – with the reading of ‘Goblin Market’. For in this extraordinary tale of desire and danger, written by a woman in the second half of the nineteenth century but as vividly alive now as when she first let it spring onto the page, you will feel all the anxiety and thrill of the long form. Will everything turn out as it should? Will the verses, coming one after the other, continue to satisfy? Will the images that hold me so wondrously, and creepily, also let me go? As well as considering the fate of the two women in the story who are to be direly tested by violence and addiction, the reader also has good cause to ask: will I be all right? ‘Goblin Market’ doesn’t want to release us with a simple happy ending and send us on our way. Christina Rossetti has crafted something that keeps working its magic upon us even when it is finished. And is it good for us? The spell she has cast is as strong as the intoxicating fruits that are presented upon her poem’s pages – ‘Figs to fill your mouth’, ‘Rare pears and greengages/Damsons and bilberries’, all to be ‘tasted’ and then ‘sucked and sucked and sucked the more.’

‘Goblin Market’ is about two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, who know that ‘Twilight is not good for maidens’ yet are tempted by it, to fall from the straight path of virtue into terror and near death. The poem opens with the cry of fruits for sale – ‘Apples and quinces,/Lemons and oranges,/Melons and raspberries...’ The list goes on, describing opulence and texture and variety in language that is irresistible. We are in a place so intensely coloured and all-encompassing of the worldly senses of hunger and desire that you will feel, as the young women whose story this is feel, the concentrated allure of everything that is to follow here. Fruits, juices, tints and stains. Touch. Ecstasy awaits – and danger. For this fruit is sold by goblin men and ‘Who knows upon what soil they fed/Their hungry, thirsty roots?’ Laura reminds her sister, but is drawn anyhow to the sinister cries of ‘Come buy, come buy!’

On one level this is a Victorian poem full of dire warning and instruction, written at a time when moral education had become embedded in cultural activity: paintings, poems and literature. So much of it was there to encourage qualities of chastity, honour, truthfulness. Be careful, was the warning issued – to young women, in particular. More than anything, good behaviour ensured the protection of marriage, maternity, patriarchy; a protection that Christina Rossetti did not choose for herself. ‘Oh’ cried Lizzie, ‘Laura, Laura,/You should not peep at goblin men’, exhorting her sister to turn away from the appeal of the fruit being sold in the murky woods. She stops up her ears and covers her eyes and runs – back to the home where all is pure and safe and quiet. But Laura can’t leave the strange creatures who’ve come out of the trees to show themselves to her. She takes their fruit, she pays her coin – a lock of her own golden hair – and she eats.