“No Friend Like a Sister”: Christina Rossetti’s Fantastic Departure from Pre-Raphaelite Poetics and Art in “Goblin Market”

Abstract

Christina Rossetti’s poetics and artistic vision in her seminal poem, “Goblin Market,” have yielded a range of critical theories, from positions on sisterhood to the ambiguous position of capitalist markets. While considering the socioeconomic and cultural context behind the poem’s development and resonance among contemporary feminist movements, readers also ought to consider the actual “goblin brotherhood” — the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) — behind Rossetti’s authorial ventures. This paper argues that Rossetti’s fantastical methods draw influence from and participate in the PRB’s poetics and artistic traditions, while subverting the same conventions within a feminist paradigm. Rossetti not only envisions a homosocial feminine utopia at the poem’s closure, but makes undeniable and pointed references to several of the PRB’s most formative poems and artwork, such as her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “Jenny,” and “Ecce Ancilla Domini!” As the fantastical world of “Goblin Market” and the literal circumstances of her poetic enterprise collide, Rossetti imagines a new discourse for women poets of her time and beyond