William Michael Rossetti

Samuel Coleridge used figurative language and unorthodox verse structure to describe the tragic, lesson-filled past of a sailor and portray literary elements of Romanticism and its ideals. By using a non-traditional approach to verse structure, it shows Coleridge's choice to not compromise the meaning and thought process of each stanza by following a set pattern. This demonstrates the versatility and story-like dynamic of the poem making it all the more captivating to the reader. Through his use of figurative language, Coleridge plays on the experiences of the audience by incorporating reality’s and aspects of daily life so the audience can easily connect with the story and apply it to their own lives. Samuel Coleridge’s use of figurative language and his manipulation of traditional fixed verse structure contributes to the story-telling dynamic and increased enjoyment of the poem through relatability and a story like format. Throughout the poem, Coleridge used figurative language to break the monotony of the story by allowing the audience to relate, apply, and understand the meaning behind the Mariner’s tale. By adding similes and metaphors throughout the Mariner’s narrative, the audience becomes better equipped to imagine and perceive the story by comparing the events that took place in the Mariners past with objects and experiences that the audience is already familiar with. For example, the quote “A pleasant noise till noon,/A noise like of a hidden brook”…

“Goblin Market”, a poem by Christina Rossetti, was written in the Victorian Era during a time of vast social and economic change across Europe. Even though this period was during a time of female suppression and order, Rossetti exposes many social ideologies -such as purity and female education- fd through the journey of two sisters, Laura and Lizzie. Despite initial impressions of being a childhood fairytale, the suggestive use of language implies an underlying message of an erotic sexual…

Christina Rossetti poem “Goblin Market” tells a story of two girls fighting with desire and temptation and keeping their innocence. In the epigraph, Rossetti shows how one of the girls gave into temptation. The epigraph shows one of the themes given in the entire poem and how it connects to the rest of the poem. The entire poem portrays purity, temptation, addiction, euphoria, and sibling bonds. The poem also offers a couple of interpretations based on the themes of the poem. The theme in the…

There is a strong sense of truth to Katja Brandt’s statement that Christina Rossetti uses the women in her poem, “Goblin Market”, to act as spiritual guides rather than a subservient female characters. Instead of making her female characters into passive figures, like many authors did at the time of the poem’s publication, Rossetti makes her characters into transmitters of a higher truth. Brandt accurately identifies that the female characters in “Goblin Market” act as religious interpreters.…

Both Christina Rossetti and Audre Lorde have written each a poem in which the central theme is of a recurring memory of a time past. Their poems use a variety of literary devices that involves the reader in experiencing the occurring memory of a past time with the speaker of the poem. Through this involvement, between the reader and the voice, the poems misleads the reader into being captured by their dream like state that makes the reader misread the inconsistencies within them. This essay will…

Despite Rossetti’s religious background, she dies alone after two failed marriages. So to say she may despise men isn’t so farfetched especially because Rossetti depicts the only men in her poem as goblins and as “awful kings.” Moreover, because Rossetti’s world of goblins demonizes the paternal branch of humanity, in the goblin universe, there are no men, thus decimating mundane gender roles. As a result, the characters Laura and Lizzie seem to direct their erotic energies towards each other.…

goblin men. Finally, as her spirit breaks, Laura “wept / as if her heart would break” and with that, Laura is now broken (267, 268). Her spirit is shattered, her mind is ravaged, and her body is deteriorating. Crying over what she had obtained and lost all within a night, or perhaps weeping over what the future could have held that is now unattainable due to her careless choices is the last step in coming to terms with what Laura has brought upon herself. Following her heart with a single…

In “Goblin Market,” Christina Rossetti discusses three main characters involved in the poem and the different experiences they encounter with these Goblin Men. In this essay, I will compare and contrast the different experiences, while describing what message Christina Rossetti is trying to formulate from these different experiences. Each character has a unique encounter with the Goblin men that has many different meanings to them and different messages being sent by the Author. The young,…

Christina Rossetti’s poem, Goblin Market presents men in a negative perspective. In the poem, three women are affected by the men’s actions. The men’s actions and the effect thereof are all portrayed as evil. The acts may be symbolizing an issue in society but such issue is never addressed directly. The speaker of Goblin Market is biased in illustrating men. The portrayal is generalized through bizarre imagery, appeal to the sense, of hearing and pathos, in order to create a dramatized situation…

relationship between Laura and Lizzie are represented through a Christian allegory. Rossetti describes the Goblin men as animalistic creatures who take advantage of the innocence, curiosity, and affections of young women. She gives “each merchant man” physical attributes of an animal, “one had a cat’s face… one tramped at a rat’s pace,” and others are described as a snake, snail, and a wombat (Rossetti 70-71, 73). The use of animal imagery to describe them shows that they bare no human…