1. CW Goblin Market Thursday, 15 November 2018
Learning Outcomes
To have started to apply different readings to Christina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market”
To be able to analyse language, verse form and structure of “Goblin Market”

2. Let’s get Fruity…………. You have 10 minutes to complete
your Secret Mission
Apples Quinces Lemons Oranges Cherries Melons Raspberries Peaches Strawberries
Mulberries Cranberries Crab-apples Dewberries Pineapples Blackberries Apricots

3. Stanza One
Practise delivering stanza one to reflect your motive in your secret mission.
Becky and Ceren: Persuade young children to eat these fruits.
Tom and Micky: Persuade the Victorian public to buy your fruits.
Will and Katie: Seduce someone you fancy.

4. Discuss… Comment on the language used to describe the fruit.
Are there any indications that all is not as it seems?
Is it significant that only “maids” hear the Goblin cries?
How would you describe the rhyme and metre of the first stanza?

5. “Evening by evening………when the last restraint is gone.”
How do Laura and Lizzie react differently to the Goblins?
Lizzie
Laura

6. Paired Dramatisation One of you is to be Laura and one to be Lizzie
Jot down the key arguments that your character uses/implies as to why they should or should not engage with the goblin men.
Dramatise a dialogue between the two of you, where you argue your point of view. Try where possible to use quotes within your dialogue.

7. CW Goblin Market Thursday, 15 November 2018
Learning Outcomes
To have started to apply different readings to Christina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market”
To be able to analyse language, verse form and structure of “Goblin Market”

8. Sum up each image in 5 words exactly
Look carefully at the following illustrations of the poem. What are your immediate reactions to the pictures?

11. Read from “Backwards up the mossy glen” to “And sugar-sweet their sap
What is the significance of the goblins taking a lock of Lizzie’s hair?

12. “The Rape of the Lock” is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope. First published in 1712.
The poem satirises a minor incident by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. It was based on an actual incident. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre, were both from aristocratic Catholic families, at a time in England when all denominations except Anglicanism suffered legal restrictions and penalties. Petre, lusting after Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, and the consequent argument had created a breach between the two families. Although the poem is humorous at times, Pope keeps a sense that beauty is fragile, and emphasizes that the loss of a lock of hair touches Belinda deeply. As his introductory letter makes clear, women in that period were essentially supposed to be decorative rather than rational, and the loss of beauty was a serious matter.

13. Samson and Delilah
According to the biblical account, Samson was given immense strength to aid him against his enemies and allow him to perform glorious feats, such as quickly killing a lion, slaying an entire army with only the jawbone of an ass, and destroying a temple of the Philistines with his bare hands. However, if Samson's long hair was cut, he would lose his strength. The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her with 1,100 silver coins to find the secret of Samson's strength so they can get rid of it and capture their enemy. Eventually after much nagging from Delilah, Samson tells Delilah that he will lose his strength with the loss of his hair. Delilah calls for a servant to shave Samson's seven locks, then woos him to sleep "in her lap“. Samson is captured by the Philistines, who blind him by gouging out his eyes. After being blinded, Samson is brought to Gaza, imprisoned, and put to work grinding grain by turning a large millstone.

14. How might Rossetti have been influenced by either of these tales?
“The Rape of the Lock” is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope. First published in The poem satirises a minor incident by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. It was based on an actual incident. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre, were both from aristocratic Catholic families, at a time in England when all denominations except Anglicanism suffered legal restrictions and penalties. Petre, lusting after Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, and the consequent argument had created a breach between the two families. Although the poem is humorous at times, Pope keeps a sense that beauty is fragile, and emphasizes that the loss of a lock of hair touches Belinda deeply. As his introductory letter makes clear, women in that period were essentially supposed to be decorative rather than rational, and the loss of beauty was a serious matter.
According to the biblical account, Samson was given immense strength to aid him against his enemies and allow him to perform glorious feats, such as quickly killing a lion, slaying an entire army with only the jawbone of an ass, and destroying a temple of the Philistines with his bare hands. However, if Samson's long hair was cut, he would lose his strength. The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her with 1,100 silver coins to find the secret of Samson's strength so they can get rid of it and capture their enemy. Eventually after much nagging from Delilah, Samson tells Delilah that he will lose his strength with the loss of his hair. Delilah calls for a servant to shave Samson's seven locks, then woos him to sleep "in her lap“. Samson is captured by the Philistines, who blind him by gouging out his eyes. After being blinded, Samson is brought to Gaza, imprisoned, and put to work grinding grain by turning a large millstone.

15. Goblin Market is a tale of wholesome sisterly love.
Look at the range of interpretations below. Based on what we have read so far, try to find evidence to support each reading.
In this poem, Rossetti makes a bold statement about female sexuality in her time, perhaps addressing issues that would have been considered hush-hush and taboo.
Goblin Market is a tale of wholesome sisterly love.
The poem is a religious portrayal of The Adam and Eve Story.
The poem is concerned with commerce, economics and exchange.
The poem is about addiction.

16. CW Goblin Market Thursday, 15 November 2018
Learning Outcomes
To be able to analyse language, verse form and structure of “Goblin Market”
To be able to engage with readings of the poem that emphasise “sisterhood”
To be able to apply the notion of “The Angel in the House” to the portrayal of Lizzie and Laura

17. Final Lines of the Poem
Look at the three possible endings to the poem and discuss which you think is the actual ending and why.
“Laura had no hope to bring,
From Summer full unto the Spring,
To follow fearless for a name,
But only wear a mark of shame.
Goblin men no more to hear,
But a single drop of a single tear.”
“For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down
To strengthen whilst one stands.”
“Laughed every goblin counting gold,
Clucking and gobbling at all they had sold,
Left behind the sisters dwindled,
Embers left of fires kindled,
Better face your greatest fears.
Than wasted dreams and wasted years.!

18. Final Lines of the Poem
“For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down To strengthen whilst one stands.” By ending the poem in this way – what arguably does Rossetti consider to be the main theme of her poem?

19. Sisterhood
The tradition of sisterhood provided a safe sphere for women to protect and reinforce their identities as models of virtue in the societal structure in Nineteen Century England. Through “sisterly” relationships of emotional and often physical love, such as the relationship between Lizzie and Laura in Christina Rossetti’s “the Goblin Market,” women were able to maintain a distance from the sphere of men and therefore sexual deviance. Some critics argue that Rossetti has created a world in “Goblin Market” that deliberately excludes men. Such critics see “sisterhood” as meaning a reaffirmation of the potentialities of women for independence and productivity.

20. AO5
Carroll Smith- Rosenberg, in her essay “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between women in the Nineteenth- Century America,” reinforces the nature of sisterhood as a protective and unifying measure, separate from the male-dominated sphere. She sees Goblin Market as a nursery rhyme intended for children, a form of conditioning young girls to accept and be accepted in the tradition of sisterhood. Within the context of this definition, it is not a steamy erotic poem, designed to challenge the conceptions of sexuality during the time, but rather a method of preserving tradition and social norms between women’s relationships.

21. Read from “golden head….” to “As if her heart would break”
How does Rossetti present the closeness of the sisters?
How are the differences between the two sister presented as the day progresses?
How can we explain Laura’s behaviour in lines 253 to 268?

22. The Angel in the House
The popular Victorian image of the ideal wife/woman came to be "the Angel in the House"; she was expected to be devoted and submissive to her husband. The Angel was passive and powerless, meek, charming, graceful, sympathetic, self-sacrificing, pious, and above all--pure. The phrase "Angel in the House" comes from the title of an immensely popular poem by Coventry Patmore, in which he holds his angel-wife up as a model for all women.

23. Believing that his wife Emily was the perfect Victorian wife, he wrote "The Angel in the House" about her (originally published in 1854, revised through 1862). Though it did not receive much attention when it was first published in 1854, it became increasingly popular through the rest of the nineteenth century and continued to be influential into the twentieth century. For Virginia Woolf, the repressive ideal of women represented by the Angel in the House was still so potent that she wrote, in 1931, "Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer." The following excerpt will give you a sense of the ideal woman and the male- female relationship presented by Patmore's poem:

24. With pardon in her pitying eyes; And if he once, by shame oppress'd, A comfortable word confers, She leans and weeps against his breast, And seems to think the sin was hers; Or any eye to see her charms, At any time, she's still his wife, Dearly devoted to his arms; She loves with love that cannot tire; And when, ah woe, she loves alone, Through passionate duty love springs higher, As grass grows taller round a stone.”
“Man must be pleased; but him to please Is woman's pleasure; down the gulf Of his condoled necessities She casts her best, she flings herself. How often flings for nought, and yokes Her heart to an icicle or whim, Whose each impatient word provokes Another, not from her, but him; While she, too gentle even to force His penitence by kind replies, Waits by, expecting his remorse,

25. Initially this ideal primarily expressed the values of the middle classes. However, Queen Victoria's devoting herself to her husband Prince Albert and to a domestic life encouraged the ideal to spread throughout nineteenth century society.

26. The Angel in the House
Find evidence in what we have read so far that suggests that Lizzie and/or Laura have qualities of an “angel in the house”.

27. CW Goblin Market Thursday, 15 November 2018
Learning Outcomes
To be able to analyse language, verse form and structure of “Goblin Market”
To understand the presentation of female characters within the context of Rossetti’s experiences at Highgate Penitentiary.

28. Read from “Lizzie could not bear” to “Began to listen and to look”
How does Rossetti present Lizzie’s conflict between wanting to help her sister by supplying the magical fruit and her fear that she will suffer the same fate as her sister and Jeanie?
What is the significance of the line “But who for joys brides hope to have”?
Pick out a line that shows Lizzie taking decisive action. What makes her do this?

29. Read from “Laughed every goblin” to “Against her mouth to make her eat
How is the description of the goblins coming towards Lizzie from line 330 made to seem threatening and predatory?
How does Lizzie react to the goblins?
How does the atmosphere change once Lizzie refuses to do what the goblins want?

30. Read “White and golden…” to “And inward laughter…”
Can it be argued that lines 408 to 421 are full of sexual imagery / euphemisms?
What happens in lines and how does Rossetti present the goblin men?
Why does Lizzie experience “inward laughter” after the experience?

31. Read “She cried ‘Laura,’…” to “goblin merchant men.”
Lizzie’s speech to her sister is both passionate and liberating as she replaces prohibition with permission. The language becomes increasingly erotic. Find examples.
At the same time, the reader is reminded of Lizzie’s sacrifice. Find evidence.

32. Read from “Laura started from her chair…” to “kiss’d her with a hungry mouth.”
Laura’s response to Lizzie is equally impassioned and the poem returns to earlier suggestions of disease, decay and sterility associated with sexual liaison. Laura projects onto Lizzie, society’s response to a fallen woman. Find evidence of this.
Nevertheless, her fears are tangled up with a desire to satiate her appetite. Find evidence of this.

33. Read from “Her lips began to scorch…” to the end of the poem
Once again, Rossetti presents us with a series of similes that create a sense of energy and action. The fire that spreads throughout the veins is all encompassing and can snuff at the “lesser flame” of desire, passion and appetite. Laura’s self is presented as struggling to cope with chaotic energies that threaten to destroy her. The section ends with Laura’s loss of sense: being overwhelmed by the storm within herself, she literally loses consciousness and her old self metaphorically dies. As a result, the poem can be seen as how a fallen woman can be reborn in the required mould for a Victorian woman. Find evidence to support this reading.

34. Highgate Penitentiary

35. Life for Women in Highgate Penitentiary
Belief in the power and viability of the sister community is common in the literature surrounding the Church Penitentiary Movement. Thomas Thellusson Carter, founder and first warden of the Penitentiary at Clewer, believed that penitents ought to meet with as little temptation from the outside world--and their old ways of life--as possible; as a result, the Penitentiary system often took on an almost xenophobic and prison-like attitude, restricting the inmates' movements to within the Penitentiary walls. Such protectiveness and isolation are characteristic of the Church Penitentiary Movement.

36. In her 1865 diatribe against the Penitentiary system, Penitentiaries and Reformatories, Felicia Skene describes how "[o]ne of the cruellest parts of the system is their rigorous confinement to the house, and total want of exercise in the open air ... it is a fact that not one breath of fresh air is allowed to these poor prisoners through the day; not one half hour is granted them in which to look on the blue sky and the sunshine, and to meet the cool breeze with its invigorating power."

37. But it was not only confinement with which the inmates had to contend
But it was not only confinement with which the inmates had to contend. It was also believed that penitents should at all times be kept under strict observation, and so "penitents were never left without a 'sister present,'" and each inmate's sleeping chamber was placed in such a way that it could be watched by a Sister "whose sleeping chamber [was] so arranged to command it." This close surveillance carried with it sinister undertones of imprisonment, which, to a certain extent, is not surprising.

38. The Penitentiary was, after all, an institution based on transgression; because the nature of the penitents' transgressions was simultaneously sexual, spiritual, and moral, it was believed that, in order for a woman to commit such a break with contemporary standards of conduct, she must be "totally dead to all sense of right."

39. Rossetti’s work in Highgate Penitentiary
Rossetti worked at Highgate Penitentiary on and off from the summer of until 1870
She wrote “Goblin Market” BEFORE this. Many of her later poems present sisters who do not support each other and in some cases, actively work against each other.
Considering Goblin Market’s idyllic ending of sisterly support and self- sacrifice within the context of Rossetti's work at Highgate, reveals that her beliefs about the potential of women's communities were far more optimistic before her experience working there.
How does the poem “Maude Claire” fit into the theme of Sisterhood?