The Green Goddess - A Review of Shelley O'Reilly's, Absinthe Makes the Tart Grow Fonder: A Note on "wormwood" in Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"

        “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti has achieved a legendarily prominent status within the canonical sphere of Victorian Era literature because of it's astounding inclusion of simultaneous moral apologues presented through intense moments of detailed description. In her essay, Absinthe Makes the Tart Grow Fonder: A Note on "wormwood" in Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market," Shelley O'Reilly investigates an important detail in Laura's second tasting of the fruit (prior to her night of exorcism) that is almost always overlooked: the description of the fruit's juice as “wormwood.” As O’Reilly points out, wormwood extract is a primary ingredient in absinthe — a bitter liqueur known for its emerald green hue and association to the obscure, insane, and hysterical.

        During the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries, absinthe was subject to significant criticism by medical professionals throughout Europe and the United States. They falsely claimed the alcoholic elixir had hallucinogenic properties and drove people to madness. This was a condition, O’Reilly mentions, that was commonly referred to during the period as “absinthism.” The disease, she states, consists of symptoms nearly identical to those typically experienced by those who suffer from alcoholism. However, rather than coming from the alcohol itself, the symptoms of absinthism come from an oil — thujone — that is robustly present in the wormwood from which the alcohol is redistilled. Brilliantly, O’Reilly points out that thujone happens to be a powerful convulsant, meaning that if it is ingested in significant quantities, it can lead to a dangerous fit of convulsions in a seizure-like episode. She strongly contends that these symptoms are identical to the ones from which Laura is suffering before she gets the antidote: Laura foams from the mouth and her arms wring as she writhes with physical anguish.

        In an idea of equal importance, O’Reilly also informs that wormwood also has anthelmintic properties, or rather, it can draw out parasites from their host. This point is incredibly important in justifying her interpretation. It establishes a strong connection to her interpretation of Laura’s possible suffering of absinthism because she is essentially being healed by the hair of the dog; the anguish that Laura is feeling as a result of eating the goblin fruit in the first place is removed through ingesting that very same fruit. Additionally, I think it develops an interesting and accurate point that the addiction she has for the fruit is like a parasite. It is something that has come inside of her and taken over her health and life. It made her lazy and unmotivated and eventually drove her nearly to the point of death. However, like a parasite, the addiction was inevitably able to be removed from her life through injecting the fruit, or absinthe. After that drop of wormwood on her tongue, Laura experienced the pain that eventually set her free from the fruit’s madness.

        Importantly, O'Reilly also clarifies that she is not writing to make any assumption that Rossetti, nor any other of the Pre-Raphaelites, definitively indulged absinthe or had any strong opinions about the rather controversial spirit. Although it’s clear that she never directly aims any of her argument towards this contention, I think it was important for O’Reilly to address this because it reinforces that her focus is solely on the implications that absinthe has within the realm of the poem, rather than how Rossetti may have felt about it.

        “Goblin Market” is absolutely riddled with metaphorical descriptions of experience, so it is not entirely surprising that this particular instance often gets swept under the rug in the examination of Laura’s relationship to the fruit. However, Shelley O’Reilly’s observations and analysis have convinced me that the inclusion of absinthe in the interpretation and discussion of Rossetti’s poem is absolutely important.

Bibliography

O’Reilly, Shelley. “Absinthe Makes the Tart Grow Fonder: A Note on ‘Wormwood’ in Christina Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market.’” Victorian Poetry, vol. 34, no. 1, West Virginia University Press, 1996, pp. 108–14, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40002545.