Sensuality in 19th Century Poetry Michaela Protenic College

Christina Rossetti's 1862 narrative poem “Goblin Market” uses allegories of whimsical and fairy tale-like writing style to represent female sexuality and how fulfilling sexual desire is natural. The poem uses references to nature to encourage the reader to believe that exploration of one’s sexuality is a normative and natural behavior. Rossetti uses a mystical plot with young sisters encountering goblins to disguise the underlying themes of expression of sexuality, especially female sexuality. The poet includes overtly sexual descriptive language to make the reader feel as though they too are able to explore their sexuality. The poem’s protagonists, a pair of young sisters named Laura and Lizzie, explore their female sexuality through their relationship with each other and the elements of the goblins and the magical fruits which they sell. The poem portrays the female protagonists in an almost-incentuous sort of familial bond between them, which is intended to prompt the reader to discover for themselves a sense of sexual expression similar to the characters in “Goblin Market”.Christina Rossetti intentionally created a series of noticeably sexually incestouous innuendos throughout the poem that suggest that the sisters had a...