SOURCE: "'Speaking Likenesses': Language and Repetition in Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market," in Victorian Poetry, Vol. 22, No. 4, Winter, 1984, pp. 439-48.

In the following essay, Conner explores the relationships between "Goblin Market" and Rossetti's other works, maintaining that the use of repetition in Rossetti's devotional poetry establishes a sense of "confirmed redemption," while in her nursery rhymes this repetition formula creates a sense of "irresolution." Similarly, Conner suggests, this "irresolution" is the result of the use of repetition in "Goblin Market."

"Goblin Market" remains one of the most persistently puzzling poems of the nineteenth century; familiarity has seemed to increase rather than to diminish our uncertainty about its form, style, meaning, and even content. The poem has been treated too much, however, as sui generis, without reference to the rest of Christina Rossetti's work and especially to her other writing for children.¹ The aim of this brief essay is to...