One of the poets we are studying is Christina Rossetti. The first text we are looking at of hers is 'Goblin Market'. Having never heard of her poetry before I was intrigued by the way she writes. The poem (or short story as I believe it should be called as it is eleven pages long!!!!) was very dark and told a clear story throughout, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Now I must admit poetry is not my favourite aspect of literature and I often find it hard to follow, however with 'Gobin Market' I found myself thoroughly intrigued and, whether it's because it's so long or it's just written brilliantly, I understood it well.
The poem has quite a gothic air to it and the story told is simular to that of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit (except with goblins). For example the poem involves goblins that move around a woods selling all the fresh fruits you can imagine, two girls come across the goblins and one is tempted into buying the fruit and it effectively destroys her and causes her previous innocence to wilt as a result of her having consumed the forbidden fruit, and this again links to the idea of temptation being her downfall. I won't spoil the rest!
In the beginning of the poem everything seems quite innocent and magical. As I read it I imagined an enchanted forest with these sweet and ripe fruits being sold by the goblins. Everything has such an innocence at the start of the poem, however as the poem progresses and the two sisters, Laura and Lizzie are introduced, the goblins seem too mysterious and fear of the unknown starts to take hold. Then when Laura cannot resist the goblins call of "Come buy, come buy" the goblins are described as these grotesque animalistic characters, which flips the poem from magical, to sinister and frightening. Laura's vulnerability is exposed and the golbins seem to relish it, and then her innocence is gone and her addiction to the fruit takes hold of her. Again there is reference to Christianity as when Laura is eating the fruit Rossetti describes it so she seems greedy, "She sucked and sucked and sucked the more Fruits which that unknown orchard bore; She sucked until her lips were sore" This links to gluttony which is one of the so-called seven deadly sins.
We haven't gone through the whole poem in depth yet (should only take a couple of years =D) so that's all I can shed real light on at the moment.
However I do think the poem is written brilliantly, Rossetti was able to maintain the steady rhythm throughout the poem which makes you really get involved with the poem as it progesses. Plus the language used by Rossetti is fantastic and you find yourself totally pulled in by the words. For example the fact that the rhyming couplets continue throughout is enough to amaze me, but like I said I'm not the biggest poem buff ever!
I look forward to analysing more of the poem next lesson Mr F!
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