Dec 16, 2009

The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales | Rossetti, Christina

Rossetti, Christina (1830–94),
English poet. She is best known today for her brilliant long poem Goblin Market (1862), an extended tale about two sisters who meet a band of sinister half‐human, half‐animal creatures who tempt them to buy exotic fruit. Laura eats the fruit, and then craves more and more—but the next day she cannot find the goblins, and she begins to waste away from longing. Lizzie, who can still see and hear the goblin men, buys their fruit but refuses to eat it; instead, she hurries home to Laura, who licks the juice from Lizzie's face and is cured. The poem draws upon legends about humans who are lost in fairyland after eating enchanted food; but it is also clearly an allegory of sexual sin and redemption that has been interpreted in many ways.

Alison Lurie

Bibliography

DeVitis, A. A., ‘Goblin Market: Fairy Tale and Reality’, Journal of Popular Culture, 1 (1968).

Kooistra, Lorraine...

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The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales | Rossetti, Christina

Bibliography

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