Skip to main content

For Friday: Rossetti, Goblin Market (handout)



Note: if you missed Wednesday’s class, you can either grab the handout from my box, or find the poem on-line.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: The poem is full of repetition and echoing devices, such as the stanzas that string simile after simile together: “Like a rush-imbedded swan,/Like a lily from the beck,/Like a moonlit poplar branch,/Like a vessel at the launch/When its last restraint is gone” (1620). Why are these repetitions significant—and where do they specifically occur in the poem?

Q2: The Goblin Market itself is full of sensual imagery, from the taste of the fruit to its shapes and textures. Since this is not only a poem but a kind of fairy tale, what might the Market represent? And why is it significant that Laura paid for the fruit with a lock of her hair?

Q3: In one of the most famous passages of the poem, Lizzie returns from the Market with the juice of the fruits on her body, and bids her sister “Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices/Squeezed from goblin fruits for  you...Eat me, drink me, love me,/Laura, make much of me” (1628). A modern reader hears many things in this passage—but what would a Victorian hear, do you think? How should we read this passage in the context of the poem itself?

Q4: The poem ends with a kind of Epilogue, set many years in the future, when the sisters both have daughters of their own. What do you feel is the point of this Epilogue and its moral? What message might this poem—which is presumably told by Lizzie and Laura to their children—have for the listeners? Is it as simple as “don’t trust men,” or “sisters stick together?” What else might they—or we—hear in this cautionary conclusion?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For Monday: Short Lecture on Colonialism and Mansfield

As a way to introduce you to some of the themes we'll be exploring with our last two books, I've recorded a short lecture (about 18 min.) that I would have discussed with you in class if we were still meeting. I know 18 minutes is a lot to watch in a single stretch, so feel free to start and stop, or simply leave it playing in the background. However, I think it will help you see and understand some of the larger ideas going on behind the scenes in Mansfield's stories.  AFTER you watch the video, answer the following question as a COMMENT below: "Since many women in the early 19th century tried to hide their identity as a woman by adopting a male name, or writing more 'male' stories, how do you think colonial writers did the same? That is, how did they hide their colonial identity in writing to sound more 'English'? What might they have had to hide, or ignore, or not reveal as a writer? (This will count toward your participation grade, since I can...
40 comments
Read more

Short Lecture on Being "Weak" in Mansfield's Stories

Before we race to the end of Mansfield's stories, I wanted to discuss some of the major themes we've encountered in several of them, particularly "Daughters of the Late Colonel," "The Life of Ma Parker," "Mr. and Mrs. Dove," and "Marriage a la Mode." Watch the video to hear some of my thoughts on these stories, most of which are drawn from your responses to the reading questions. It's a little longer than the last one, but still only about 25 minutes (sorry)!  After you finish, answer the following question as a COMMENT on the blog.  Q: Talking about emotions, love, death, or otherwise being "weak" was very taboo in British society at this time. What subjects or relationships do you feel are taboo in our own society? And I don't just mean awkward subjects (abortion, politics, etc.), but what emotions or experiences would you have trouble discussing with your parents, your siblings, your friends, and even your sig...
32 comments
Read more

For Friday: Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

“Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections in Early Childhood” (pp.51-57): read the entire poem, but the questions will only focus on Stanzas 1-7 NOTE: This is a longer poem, though it’s broken up into short stanza chapters.  Read it slowly, and focus on each stanza as an individual poem.  Then consider how each one develops a general ‘story’ or narrative about Wordsworth’s life.  Consider this, too, as a kind of mid-life crisis poem: Wordsworth feels himself pulling away from the innocent joys he used to experience in life, and the poem is an attempt to find himself—and to convince other readers to find themselves in the thickets of adulthood.  Answer TWO of the following... Q1: According to Stanzas 1-4, what causes the poet to feel distanced from the natural world?   What has come between him and his imagination/emotions?   In Stanza 2 he writes that “But yet I know, where’er I go,/That there hath past away a glory from the earth...
25 comments
Read more