If you ever have the opportunity to study Christina
Rossetti in an academic climate, you will find more academic journal articles,
essays, and even books written on “Goblin Market” than on any other of her many
fine works. Even when you do find a
resource touching on another of her poems, it is frequently analyzed in light
of or in conjunction with “Goblin Market.”
In other words, if you would like to learn about “Goblin
Market,” prepare yourself for a feast.
As could be expected in academia, however, this feast is
a cornucopia of contradictory ideas and interpretations. Some suggest that “Goblin Market” is a
metaphor for humanity’s fall and Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. If you are of a Christian bent, you can
easily see why someone might see this.
Laura’s fall comes through fruit; Lizzie’s pure behavior and
self-sacrifice brings Laura back. There is even the beautiful sacramental
language of “Eat me, drink me, love me” (473) which resonates with the
Christian Eucharist. Further research
tells that Rossetti was heavily involved in the Anglican church, so this makes
the Christian narrative interpretation quite believable.
Other interpretations build from the highly sensual
language in the poem. Some writers say
that it is a metaphor for the emphasis that Victorians put on women’s virginal
status and its role on the economic state of women in England. This too is easy to see; Lizzie is saved by
keeping her silver penny, a metaphor for virginity, while Jeannie dies “for
joys brides hope to have” (315).
Research also informs us that Rossetti worked with the Anglican church
to provide relief and healing to women who had been involved in
prostitution. This interpretation is
also viable and supported with both literary and historical evidence.
The sensual nature of the poem has spurred even extremely
prurient takes on its meaning; for example, Playboy
once released a book with erotic photographs to go along with the poem. All you
need to do is read “She sucked and sucked and sucked the more/ […] / She sucked
until her lips were sore” (139-141) and you sort of get the idea. All I can say is that they must have been
trying to appeal to lonely English professors.
You can research “Goblin Market” until you are dizzy (and
I have). In everyone’s eagerness to
explicate this poem into oblivion, however, I notice that no one ever stops to
ask, “Hey, what if this was just a story she wrote?” Even if one did, the reply
is obvious. All stories have a deeper
meaning—no story is “just” a story. While
Stanley Fish might insist that the readers create that meaning all by
themselves, I tend to think that the meaning more or less comes from the
author.
(However, my many issues with Fish and his extreme
reader-response criticism are outside the scope of this blog post. Perhaps another day I shall delve into the
problems with the controversial idea that meaning is created and not found.)
A question which I also have never seen asked is this:
“What genre is ‘Goblin Market?’” Answers to such a question would generally be
either “literature” or “poetry.” It is
my proposition, however, that “Goblin Market” is fantasy.
I can almost hear the academic purists crying, "Blasphemy!" now. “Fantasy? Are you mad?
It’s literature! It’s not fantasy, you
Tolkien-toting hag! It’s a metaphor for reality!”
To which I reply, “What do you think fantasy is, anyway?”
I bring this up because there is an unspoken tendency in
academia—and the writing world at large—that fantasy and science fiction aren’t
“real” literature. Just go to any
English department and tell the professors that you are writing a novel. Their faces light up at first, but then when
you tell them it’s speculative fiction, they sort of look away as if embarrassed
for you; a look that says, “Ah, you poor, pathetic purveyor of pulp fiction.”
Who knows, maybe I just went to the wrong college.*
However, I ardently insist that speculative fiction is literature. And this is where the title of my blog comes
in.
“Lamps and Mirrors” is a reference to M.H. Abrams’ theory
of the mind as a lamp or as a mirror.
One of my favorite writers, G. E. Veith, Jr., takes Abrams’ metaphor and
applies it to realism and fantasy. Veith
does not call realism and fantasy genres, however; rather, he describes them as
modes of literature. I find the term ‘mode’ to be far more
accurate, because ‘mode’ suggests that something can change, whereas
‘genre’—literally meaning ‘kind’—is a narrow category with a fixed definition.
The problem today is that publishing genres have caused
‘literature’ to become synonymous with ‘realism,’ or, even worse, ‘the only
stuff that intelligent people should read.’” Veith, however, describes realism and fantasy
by their function—as a mirror or as a lamp.
“Literature as a mirror,” he writes, “reflects the truth as
it is” (118), thereby defining realism as a mirror. Likewise, he compares fantasy to the lamp:
Literature as a lamp projects what is in the mind into tangible forms. […] When a lamp gives off light, it enables people to see not only itself but the external objects around it. Good fantasy does the same. While projecting inner longings and fears, it also sheds a hard, objective light on the human condition (118).
However, the truth is that neither fantasy nor realism can
be bottled into such constricted definitions; the modes of literature, while
distinct in their attributes, can be fluid and transposable. Veith emphasizes this by blurring their
distinctions, saying that “fantasy can function as a mirror,” though its
purpose is closer to a “fun-house mirror, whose exaggerations can help us
notice what we normally ignore” (118). Orson Scott Card, a prominent writer of
Science Fiction and Fantasy, also subscribes to this notion.
Indeed, one of the greatest values of speculative fiction is that creating a strange imaginary world is often the best was to help readers see the real world through fresh eyes and notice things that would otherwise remain unnoticed (61-62).
Conversely, “Even realistic fiction as a human expression
and an active interpreter of the world it comments upon can serve as a lamp” (Veith
118), largely in part because “the wonders of the real world can outdo our
wildest imaginations” (Veith 119).
So where is the line drawn between fantasy and realism? They are discrete yet mysteriously interwoven. This blurring of distinctions is why, though
the title of my blog is “Lamps and Mirrors,” the subtitle is “Where Literature
and Speculative Fiction Meet.” If I were
to list the genres respectively, speculative fiction would be first and then
literature would be second. (Note that I
use the publishing industry standard of ‘literature’ as synonymous with
‘realism’ and substitute ‘speculative fiction’ for ‘fantasy.’) This is because
I agree with Veith’s conclusion that “For all its impossibilities, fantasy can
paradoxically be very realistic psychologically and spiritually. By the same token, realism, when pursued far
enough, can include the fantastic” (146).
This is why I once again submit that “Goblin Market” is
fantasy. Fantasy and realism, while
distinct, are not mutually exclusive. In
“Goblin Market,” Rossetti’s lamp of imagination takes us to a strange,
delightful world filled with fantastic little goblin men. Her gorgeous description of “ratel- and
wombat-like” (342) fills our mind's eye with wonder and enchantment. The malevolent transformation of the goblins
into vicious assailants against good-willed Lizzie sparks our imaginations with
a glimpse of the fantastic heroine, “white and golden” (409) where she
stands. To say that “Goblin Market” is
not fantasy is an insult to Christina Rossetti’s inimitable skill.
However, fantasy and realism are not so distinct. Academics say that “Goblin Market” is a
metaphor, and indeed it is: a comparison without the use of ‘like’ or
‘as.’ The definition of fantasy as a
lamp might say that this is indeed all fantasy is—a grand metaphor using the
unfamiliar and imagined to describe the real.
In fact, fantasy is nothing more than a recombination of what already
is:
Writers of fantasy are often said to be “creating” what does not in reality exist. […] The most outrageous monster conceivable is only a new combination of what already exists. A dragon is simply a giant reptile, with perhaps the wings of a bat and the fire of a blast furnace added on. […] Try to imagine a monster which owes nothing to what is real. […] Try to imagine a new shape of a new emotion. Try to imagine a new color. The mind must work in terms of the existing created order, of which it is a part. […] Fantasy is tied to reality… (Veith 119)
Veith is not the only writer to suggest that fantasy is not
just a bunch of imaginative gobbledygook which writers pull out of their rear
ends. Card also emphasizes the importance
of researching the real world in order to write effective fantasy and science
fiction.
Speculative fiction is not an escape from the real world, and writing it is not a way to have a literary career without having to research anything! Speculative fiction instead provides a lens through which to view the real world better than it could ever be seen with the natural eye (62).
Hence, we see that all of Rossetti’s goblins are compared to
animals, a motley assortment of creatures from all over the world. Wombats would have been an exotic creature
for the Victorian Englishman to consider at the time—which reinforces the
notion that even the real can be fantastic.
Of course, the creatures of “Goblin Market” are not the only
things which draw from reality. This is
why “Goblin Market” can be interpreted in so many different ways. It is echoic of Christian doctrine, or
Victorian society’s attitudes toward sexuality, or whatever particular theory
one to which one might subscribe. (It might even be echoic of graphic sexual
material, but I submit that Playboy
released their illustrated version in highly poor taste, working to sell sex
rather than increase an appreciation of literature. I personally find their doing so
deplorable—and yet highly ironic in light of “Goblin Market”s possible
description of sex as something monetized.)
To ask what genre one might categorize “Goblin Market” as,
in my opinion, is really a bit of a moot point.
Rather, we see that its mode of literature is fantasy—a lamp which sheds
light on the realities before us. Tricky
as literary modes can be, however, we also see that it behaves in accordance
with reality.
This concept is what drives this entire blog. It is an intersection of the literary modes,
a bold contradiction to the publishing and academic world that literature and
speculative fiction can be one and the same, the place where literature and
speculative fiction meet.
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Works Cited:
Card, Orson Scott. How
to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. Cincinnati: Writers Digest, 1990.
Rossetti, Christina. “Goblin Market.” Goblin Market and Other Poems. Ed.
Candace Ward. New York: Dover, 1994. 1-16.
Veith, Gene Edward, Jr. Reading
Between the Lines: A Christian Guide to Reading Literature. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway,1990.
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*I'm talking about all of my professors except for Douglas J., who taught a class on speculative fiction. Thanks for that, Mr. J.; you taught me to be fearless in my love of all things Science Fiction and Fantasy.
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Share your thoughts on genre, literary modes, or whatever you have to say about "Goblin Market" in the comments.
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