Goblin Market de Christina G. Rossetti : « sororité » et tentations d’innocence

Goblin Market is a perfect exemplar of what English critics label as cross-audienced poems. It has been read in turn as a children’s fairy tale and adult erotic fantasy. This paper shows that in Rossetti’s narrative poem the biblical episode of the Fall is permeated by a Pre-Raphaelite form of sensu...

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Main Author: George Letissier
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2004-04-01
Series:Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/cve/16606
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author George Letissier
author_facet George Letissier
author_sort George Letissier
collection DOAJ
description Goblin Market is a perfect exemplar of what English critics label as cross-audienced poems. It has been read in turn as a children’s fairy tale and adult erotic fantasy. This paper shows that in Rossetti’s narrative poem the biblical episode of the Fall is permeated by a Pre-Raphaelite form of sensuousness. All the ambivalence of the text stems from its apparent hesitation overcoming temptation, and celebrating the delights the very possibility of temptation offers. A stylistic analysis of key extracts would suggest that the evocation of the Original Sin makes for unprecedented writing creativity. Through her two feminine characters, Lizzie who resists temptation and her sister Laura who succumbs to it, Rossetti subtly adumbrates a discourse on feminine desire. The structure of the verse conveys the dialectic interdependence between expression and repression, overflow and barrier, which mirrors the inner contradictions of passion. Finally this article argues that the poem dreams up the possibility of going beyond the innocence/experience polar opposition through a fall into a second innocence.
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spelling doaj-art-04a1d553dd77476baf562a6c8af950f52025-08-20T02:56:46ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492004-04-015910.4000/147trGoblin Market de Christina G. Rossetti : « sororité » et tentations d’innocenceGeorge LetissierGoblin Market is a perfect exemplar of what English critics label as cross-audienced poems. It has been read in turn as a children’s fairy tale and adult erotic fantasy. This paper shows that in Rossetti’s narrative poem the biblical episode of the Fall is permeated by a Pre-Raphaelite form of sensuousness. All the ambivalence of the text stems from its apparent hesitation overcoming temptation, and celebrating the delights the very possibility of temptation offers. A stylistic analysis of key extracts would suggest that the evocation of the Original Sin makes for unprecedented writing creativity. Through her two feminine characters, Lizzie who resists temptation and her sister Laura who succumbs to it, Rossetti subtly adumbrates a discourse on feminine desire. The structure of the verse conveys the dialectic interdependence between expression and repression, overflow and barrier, which mirrors the inner contradictions of passion. Finally this article argues that the poem dreams up the possibility of going beyond the innocence/experience polar opposition through a fall into a second innocence.https://journals.openedition.org/cve/16606
spellingShingle George Letissier
Goblin Market de Christina G. Rossetti : « sororité » et tentations d’innocence
Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
title Goblin Market de Christina G. Rossetti : « sororité » et tentations d’innocence
title_full Goblin Market de Christina G. Rossetti : « sororité » et tentations d’innocence
title_fullStr Goblin Market de Christina G. Rossetti : « sororité » et tentations d’innocence
title_full_unstemmed Goblin Market de Christina G. Rossetti : « sororité » et tentations d’innocence
title_short Goblin Market de Christina G. Rossetti : « sororité » et tentations d’innocence
title_sort goblin market de christina g rossetti sororite et tentations d innocence
url https://journals.openedition.org/cve/16606
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