Of the two Rossetti poems that we are reading, “In an Artist’s Studio” is far more straightforward, at least in its attitude toward how women were viewed, or, turned into “art objects,” especially during the Victorian period and within the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. One way of approaching this sonnet is through its biographical contexts, which might afford a deeper understanding of how Rossetti uses the poem to contest Victorian notions of gender as well as the tone or theme of female sympathy that runs throughout much of her work. The artist in the sonnet is most likely Rossetti’s brother, Dante Gabriel, and the model, the “one face,” is probably Elizabeth Siddal (1829-1862), D.G.’s muse at the time his sister composed her poem (1856). The painting to the right, Regina Cordium, is by D.G. Rossetti, commemorating his marriage to Siddal in 1860, which ended in 1862 when Siddal died quite young from a laudanum overdose.
Although the message of Rossetti’s poem is generally clear-cut in its critique of the way in which Siddal is turned into a “nameless thing” in all the artist’s paintings, what Rossetti does here, however, is quite powerful: she uses a kind of double female gaze to turn the male gaze back upon itself, exposing not only how the female gaze of the model is no more than a reflection of the male’s desires but also the power of the female gaze (or, Rossetti’s gaze) to deconstruct those male desires. Incidentally, Siddal was also an artist yet she is mostly known for appearing in many famous paintings by Pre-Raphaelite artists, such as the image below, cropped from John Everett Millais' Ophelia (1852).
Although the message of Rossetti’s poem is generally clear-cut in its critique of the way in which Siddal is turned into a “nameless thing” in all the artist’s paintings, what Rossetti does here, however, is quite powerful: she uses a kind of double female gaze to turn the male gaze back upon itself, exposing not only how the female gaze of the model is no more than a reflection of the male’s desires but also the power of the female gaze (or, Rossetti’s gaze) to deconstruct those male desires. Incidentally, Siddal was also an artist yet she is mostly known for appearing in many famous paintings by Pre-Raphaelite artists, such as the image below, cropped from John Everett Millais' Ophelia (1852).
Although the real-life model has become diminished, Rossetti's poem makes clear that the multiple reproductions of the muse's face take on a power that reveals (at least to the reader and the speaker of the poem) how the “artist” is a vampire-figure who “feeds upon her face day and night” and that his obsessive love is the very thing that is perhaps killing her. Also, the speaker’s gaze (if we assume it to be Christina Rossetti’s own gaze) acts as a powerful (feminist) art critic, diminishing the painter’s work through her dispassionate critique of his inability to bring the “real” woman to life, only silencing her or making her, ironically enough, invisible. In other words, the painter cannot “see” the very person his own gaze obsessively devours. In this sense as well, the presumably female speaker aligns herself with the female model in an act of “sisterhood” so that through the poet’s voice she perhaps returns to the silenced woman a voice that condemns the man who has objectified his muse. So, even though the woman in the painting is a “saint” and “angel” she is nevertheless “fallen” from her former self, her face no longer “lovely” and young but “wan with waiting” and her eyes “with sorrow dim.” It’s as if Rossetti seems to be saying that the moment women (during the Victorian era) enter into any kind of public space and/or contact with the male gaze, they are vulnerable and at risk of losing themselves. This could be interpreted as supporting Victorian gender roles, situating men and women in a binary relationship where men are ravenous beasts who destroy or sully a woman’s purity while women are “morally superior” to men and yet all the more open to a “fall.” Rossetti’s work is “tricky” in this sense because the views of gender roles in most of her texts are quite ambiguous.
Goblin Market is no exception, since critics have interpreted this poem in many different ways: as a story about temptation and redemption; a critique of Victorian materialism; rejection of patriarchal amatory values; a celebration of women's power; a sexual fantasy of incestuous lesbian love; or a literary representation of the eating disorder anorexia nervosa (Siddal is also thought to have suffered from anorexia). The poem most obviously plays with the notion of the “fallen” woman in the context of the Christian story of The Fall, which had a significant influence on how Victorians regarded the potent interconnections of knowledge, sex, and power. Goblin Market can be interpreted as a re-telling of or commentary on this story when we examine its conceptions of purity and corruption. Instead of providing my own lengthy interpretation of the poem in the context of the biblical narrative, I’ll pose some further questions you might consider when re-reading the poem: What is its attitude, ultimately, towards sin, pleasure, and sexuality? Are spirituality and sexuality necessarily opposed terms within the text? Who is at fault in this poem for the fall: Laura or the goblin men? If both are to blame, what flaw/weakness/vice do each incarnate? What do you make of the end and the sisters' re-inscription into typical female domestic structures? How does this relate to typical nineteenth-century narratives of “fallenness”? Could the gender of the author have anything to do with the differences from the traditional ending for a fallen woman (i.e. Eve’s punishment in Genesis)?
What I find especially interesting about this poem, beyond its retelling of the Christian narrative of The Fall, is its depiction of women on the “marketplace.” Rossetti sets up a significant tension between the marketplace and the domestic sphere, as well as the relation between economic exchange and the expression of desire. Goblin Market, like “In an Artist’s Studio,” positions the female characters, and by extension female experience, in a dramatic relationship to these things, exploring the ways in which women must negotiate their bodies and desires with regards to (religious) renunciation, consumer power, aesthetic pleasure, and even their own identities as beautiful objects. I think on one level Rossetti is essentially examining, especially in Goblin Market, how any foray into the marketplace is compromising for women. All the women in the poem are made to suffer for their contact with the goblins. On another level, the poem itself is perhaps trying to explore whether there are proper and improper ways to engage in relations of exchange—both on the marketplace and with other people. I mean, clearly it would be a mistake to believe that all Victorian women—especially the upper-middle to upper classes—were literally shut up in their homes without any contact with the outside world. They were very much part of the social scene, some might have even been businesswomen, and most if not all certainly did business with merchants and others who sold various domestic items and sundries (especially at this time when Britain was at its height of Imperialism, making available all kinds of imported and “exotic” goods). So, with this in mind, obviously women of a certain class or social standing would need to know how to maneuver in the public sphere without “falling” under the suspicion of being a “fallen” woman. Thus, we might read this poem as narrating an effort to survive—and even triumph over—the perils of the marketplace (or public sphere).
Though, of course, by the end, Lizzie and Laura are safely contained within the home, as if to indicate women should be happy to remain there because the outside world is too threatening and dangerous; or, that women’s desires are dangerous and must be tamed by, say, becoming mothers? The “moral” at the end of the poem is really quite odd, especially in the context of the somewhat celebratory and erotic depiction of Sapphic/sisterly love—though it always seems to me that whenever any historical female authors write about close and supportive female relations, critics are often quick to point out how this proves the author was a lesbian or had an incestuous relationship with one of her sisters (see Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, C. Rossetti, and I’m sure many others I can’t think of off the top of my head). For me, it's important that Laura is the one who has the last word, and though I’m not sure her didactic message is very reassuring (at least for a contemporary feminist reader), it aligns with the fairy-tale motifs present in the poem.
In other words, if we read Goblin Market as a children’s poem, then the moral serves as a fitting conclusion, keeping in mind that fairy tales were “old wives’ tales” and often told to female children as lessons for how they should behave in a “man’s world” and how to survive all the big bad wolves (or goblins) out there once they grew up. Also, allowing the redeemed “fallen” woman to speak at the end is very much in line with common Victorian sentiments. For instance, there were Rescue Societies for Fallen Women in which “reputable” women went out into the streets to “save” their fallen “sisters” (prostitutes) and convince them to go back into respectable work (like factories or domestic help, which did not pay very well and often had working conditions worse than the streets). Lastly, and maybe more positively, the final message of the poem is reassuring in its reminder or reinforcement of the lesson learned throughout the poem’s narrative: the strength that women can take from close relationships and bonds; that a sister will (or should) always be there for another sister; that a sister will always forgive and/or save you; that the best relationships or friendships women can form are with other women (which are all very 2nd-wavey feminist sentiments, and I think, actually, very good ones for promoting female bonds rather than female rivalry).
Goblin Market is no exception, since critics have interpreted this poem in many different ways: as a story about temptation and redemption; a critique of Victorian materialism; rejection of patriarchal amatory values; a celebration of women's power; a sexual fantasy of incestuous lesbian love; or a literary representation of the eating disorder anorexia nervosa (Siddal is also thought to have suffered from anorexia). The poem most obviously plays with the notion of the “fallen” woman in the context of the Christian story of The Fall, which had a significant influence on how Victorians regarded the potent interconnections of knowledge, sex, and power. Goblin Market can be interpreted as a re-telling of or commentary on this story when we examine its conceptions of purity and corruption. Instead of providing my own lengthy interpretation of the poem in the context of the biblical narrative, I’ll pose some further questions you might consider when re-reading the poem: What is its attitude, ultimately, towards sin, pleasure, and sexuality? Are spirituality and sexuality necessarily opposed terms within the text? Who is at fault in this poem for the fall: Laura or the goblin men? If both are to blame, what flaw/weakness/vice do each incarnate? What do you make of the end and the sisters' re-inscription into typical female domestic structures? How does this relate to typical nineteenth-century narratives of “fallenness”? Could the gender of the author have anything to do with the differences from the traditional ending for a fallen woman (i.e. Eve’s punishment in Genesis)?
What I find especially interesting about this poem, beyond its retelling of the Christian narrative of The Fall, is its depiction of women on the “marketplace.” Rossetti sets up a significant tension between the marketplace and the domestic sphere, as well as the relation between economic exchange and the expression of desire. Goblin Market, like “In an Artist’s Studio,” positions the female characters, and by extension female experience, in a dramatic relationship to these things, exploring the ways in which women must negotiate their bodies and desires with regards to (religious) renunciation, consumer power, aesthetic pleasure, and even their own identities as beautiful objects. I think on one level Rossetti is essentially examining, especially in Goblin Market, how any foray into the marketplace is compromising for women. All the women in the poem are made to suffer for their contact with the goblins. On another level, the poem itself is perhaps trying to explore whether there are proper and improper ways to engage in relations of exchange—both on the marketplace and with other people. I mean, clearly it would be a mistake to believe that all Victorian women—especially the upper-middle to upper classes—were literally shut up in their homes without any contact with the outside world. They were very much part of the social scene, some might have even been businesswomen, and most if not all certainly did business with merchants and others who sold various domestic items and sundries (especially at this time when Britain was at its height of Imperialism, making available all kinds of imported and “exotic” goods). So, with this in mind, obviously women of a certain class or social standing would need to know how to maneuver in the public sphere without “falling” under the suspicion of being a “fallen” woman. Thus, we might read this poem as narrating an effort to survive—and even triumph over—the perils of the marketplace (or public sphere).
Though, of course, by the end, Lizzie and Laura are safely contained within the home, as if to indicate women should be happy to remain there because the outside world is too threatening and dangerous; or, that women’s desires are dangerous and must be tamed by, say, becoming mothers? The “moral” at the end of the poem is really quite odd, especially in the context of the somewhat celebratory and erotic depiction of Sapphic/sisterly love—though it always seems to me that whenever any historical female authors write about close and supportive female relations, critics are often quick to point out how this proves the author was a lesbian or had an incestuous relationship with one of her sisters (see Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, C. Rossetti, and I’m sure many others I can’t think of off the top of my head). For me, it's important that Laura is the one who has the last word, and though I’m not sure her didactic message is very reassuring (at least for a contemporary feminist reader), it aligns with the fairy-tale motifs present in the poem.
In other words, if we read Goblin Market as a children’s poem, then the moral serves as a fitting conclusion, keeping in mind that fairy tales were “old wives’ tales” and often told to female children as lessons for how they should behave in a “man’s world” and how to survive all the big bad wolves (or goblins) out there once they grew up. Also, allowing the redeemed “fallen” woman to speak at the end is very much in line with common Victorian sentiments. For instance, there were Rescue Societies for Fallen Women in which “reputable” women went out into the streets to “save” their fallen “sisters” (prostitutes) and convince them to go back into respectable work (like factories or domestic help, which did not pay very well and often had working conditions worse than the streets). Lastly, and maybe more positively, the final message of the poem is reassuring in its reminder or reinforcement of the lesson learned throughout the poem’s narrative: the strength that women can take from close relationships and bonds; that a sister will (or should) always be there for another sister; that a sister will always forgive and/or save you; that the best relationships or friendships women can form are with other women (which are all very 2nd-wavey feminist sentiments, and I think, actually, very good ones for promoting female bonds rather than female rivalry).
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