Do Rossetti's Poems Suck?: "Goblin Market" as a Vampire Story

     In his essay "Twilight is Not Good For Maidens: Uncle Polidori and the Psychodynamics of Vampirism in Goblin Market," David F. Morrill proposes what may seem like a radical claim about Christina Rossetti's poem, "Goblin Market." He claims that, despite Rossetti's own claims that it was a mere fairy story, the poem actually borrows much from John Polidori's 1819 sensation novel, The Vampyre. He acknowledges the fact that this seems like a long shot, only to then point out that John Polidori was in fact Christina Rossetti's uncle, therefore laying the groundwork of credibility for the rest of his argument. He proceeds to point out through the piece the sexual nature of the poem and its similarities to vampire fiction, as well as how evocative Rossetti's word choice is of vampirism. Most notably, he dives into the fact that the poem is obsessed with sucking, something that is inextricable from the vampire myth that was so popular in the Victorian Era.

    I think that Morrill's analysis of the poem is ingenious. I also believe that this analysis is tied so intimately to the Victorian period, not only because of the Victorians' love of vampire fiction, but because of their infamous prudishness. Morrill has a passage where he describes the poem as incredibly sexual, while never once explicitly mentioning sex. This is so typical of the Victorian Era. Sexual repression was rampant in England at this time and the sexual feelings that people had often manifested themselves in ways like this, hidden under a paper-thin veneer. Vampire fiction is perhaps the quintessential example of this phenomenon. It features strange foreigners with loose morals, sneaking into people's rooms, seducing them and sucking their bodily fluids. Perhaps this is vulgar simplification, but the point stands that sexuality is inherently tied to the vampire.

Another aspect that Morrill points out is this idea of the night and the vampiric transformation. The poem explicitly states that Laura should not be out after sunset. Without context, this appears too be taken straight from a vampire novel. Aside from the obvious vampire mythos parallel, this also ties into the sexual vampiric element. In real life, there are very practical reasons why someone might tell a young woman to stay in after sundown, and it has nothing to do with vampires. Morrill is very explicit about how the imagery of the poem is very evocative of rape at certain points. Now, his assessment of the vampiric transformation is that Victorian writers often used it to portray a punishment for sexual promiscuity. When this is incorporated into "Goblin Market," it gives the poem a much darker undertone. This rape that Laura suffers can be seen as the beginning of her vampiric transformation, and therefore the beginning of a punishment that she suffers for being raped. I think that what Morrill has done here is give a new way to read Rossetti's poem that reveals much about how the Victorians viewed human, and more specifically female, sexuality. Through this lens of vampirism, the reader can be given insight not only on how sexuality was repressed for these people, but how it was viewed as a punishable offense.

Works Cited:

Morrill, David F. “‘Twilight Is Not Good for Maidens’: Uncle Polidori and the Psychodynamics of Vampirism in ‘Goblin Market.’” Victorian Poetry, vol. 28, no. 1, West Virginia University Press, 1990, pp. 1–16, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40002037.