Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market (1862) lends itself to a wide variety of different readings.
As a poem centered in the mercantile activity of its nineteenth-century poet, however, it reflects the variety of exotic goods flooding into England as the spoils of empire as well as the fervent consumerism that trade engendered:
Rossetti’s poem, like many other works of art and literature, reflect the complex issues of women especially as consumers and as victims of this aspect of imperialism.
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.”
The many markets around London including Portobello Market and those that dominate Brick Lane carry the goods from all over the globe that Rossetti focuses on in her poem. These are some of the pics from our trip.
Imperial London Spring Break 2019 