Here’s where food adulteration becomes crucial. But would non-fresh fruit really be as “sweet to tongue and sound to eye” as the goblins’ fruit is (Rossetti 30)? One might argue, then, that the goblins are importers or talented horticulturalists (assuming they also have significant economic power, that is). Instead, Victorians would have had to rely on imported or greenhouse-grown produce. According to Richard Menke, it is unlikely that fresh fruit would have been available at this time. The early days of spring were unexpectedly warm, while the later were blighted by a severe frost.

So why these fruits?įirst, it’s useful to think about the year Rossetti was writing: 1859. We could chalk this up to the goblins having magical harvesting abilities, but that seems a bit cheap for an otherwise deeply complex poem. Blueberries, for example, are only in season from June to August, while quince are harvested from September to November. It’s a mouthful, of course, but it’s also a strange list to anyone who knows about seasonality, especially since Victorian farmers didn’t have our present ability to easily circumvent natural harvest seasons. Take a moment and consider the list of fruits the goblins profess to sell:Īpples, quinces, lemons, oranges, cherries, melons, raspberries, peaches, mulberries, cranberries, crab-apples, dewberries, pine-apples, blackberries, apricots, strawberries, grapes, pomegranates, dates, bullaces, pears, greengages, damsons, bilberries, currants, gooseberries, barberries, figs, and citrons. Stern points out, few critics consider the fruit simply as food. From Goblin Market (1933) illustrated by Arthur RackhamĮach of these interpretations depends heavily on the poem’s tongue-twisting first stanza, in which the titular goblins cry out the names of twenty-nine different fruits available for purchase. Critics cite the poem’s references to Eden and the forbidden fruit, its apparent sympathy for “fallen women” (since, miraculously, Laura makes it out of the poem alive!), and the homoerotic undertones of the two sisters’ relationship. “Goblin Market” has been read allegorically by countless scholars, particularly in terms of gender and sexuality. Through Lizzie’s intervention, however (and, ironically, another taste of the goblins’ fruit), Laura regains her health, youth, and beauty. When Laura succumbs to temptation and trades a lock of her hair for a taste of the fruit “sweeter than honey from the rock,” she falls mortally ill (Rossetti 129). By Cailin Roles (MA ’19), Department of English, Kansas State UniversityĬhristina Rossetti’s 1862 poem “Goblin Market” tells the story of Laura and Lizzie, two young unmarried sisters who are tempted day and night by the cries of goblin fruit merchants.

The goblin market