Christina Rossetti was born in 1830 and passed away in 1894 at the age of 64. As demonstrated in the majority of her poems, she took a rather religious stance whilst writing them. She used this as ‘inspiration’ to write, with examples of such biblical poems being The Convent Threshold and Goblin Market. She considered her faith as devotion, and had hidden many different meanings into a variety of poems, leading not only to critical review but also to many different reader interpretations. Goblin Market for instance can be considered either a typical children’s rhyme, or a sexually explicit poem depending on how the reader views it. Linda H Peterson, a critic in this expertise, views a completely different side of the poem, a religious one. This is a poem which puts ‘temptation, fall and redemption’ into perspective, with biblical references to the religious story of Adam & Eve. In that story in particular, they succumb to the temptation of eating the forbidden fruit from the tree after much persuasion from a snake, portrayed to be evil. In Goblin Market on the other hand, the same story applies in the sense that they were told not to eat the fruit of the Goblins but still do, with a number of repercussions.
The critic believes that Rossetti suffered with both depression and ‘hysteria’ which meant all of her work had more to it than the naked eye may see. As discussed in class, her poems give off the view of feminism that she may have carried. She was a devotee of poetry and many women may have read these and been inspired. She gave women what was to be considered at the time as a ‘voice’ and one may argue she was one of many who shaped the way women are viewed in modern day society with equality. Rossetti’s writing style cannot always be clear, but when discovering the many different meanings behind them, it becomes intriguing. Furthermore, when discovering her background, one gets to understand what may have been going through her mind at the time of writing and therefore gives you a peripheral view and allowing you to think outside the box.