How do Christina Rosseti and Alfred Lord Tennyson explore the themes of love and death in the poems "Goblin Market" and "The Lady of Shallot".

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How do Christina Rosseti and Alfred Lord Tennyson explore the themes of love and death in the poems “Goblin Market” and “The Lady of Shallot” (NIMA SAGHARCHI)

Christina Rosseti and Alfred Lord Tennyson, both notorious poets of the Victorian era (1830-1901) were  heir to the poets Romantic era, which employed  an interest in personal experience, everyday things, ordinary language, the Gothic, and the medieval as a basis for their poetry. The Victorian era carried from the Romantics distrust of  religion, scepticism and an  interest in the occult, and in some ways, Victorian poetry is known for its great sensibility. However the works of Tennyson and Roseti seem to employ a more religious Pre-Raphalite style of writing. Both “Goblin Market” and “The Lady of Shalott’ explore love, death, temptation, Christianity, and suffering. Each taking an individual standpoint on the subjects.

Let us first examine the themes of Love in the poem Goblin market. Although the main theme of the poem is temptation, the symbolism in  the poem evokes  images of sin, sexuality, corruption, and  affection for loved ones. The main theme of love is the strong affection between Lizzie and Laura, their sisterly love helps them survive, this sisterly love is known as Agape (Dictionary Definition: “Love as revealed in Jesus, seen as spiritual and selfless and a model for humanity. Love that is spiritual, not sexual, in its nature”). From this definition we can draw the fact that their sisterly affection and selflessness helps them to help each other out with compassion:

“For there is no friend like a sister,
In calm or stormy weather,
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands”

In this poem the temptations of the Goblin men are fought off by the love of the two sisters. “For your sake I have braved the glen, And had to do with goblin merchant men” , this shows the selflessness of Lizzie’s love, that she was prepared to sacrifice herself for the sake of her own sister. Her love not only involves sacrifice but also protection, she seems to be wiser and more intelligent and sensible than Laura, and therefore takes the role of her protector and guardian when she “thrusts a dimple finger in each ear” to shield Laura from the harmful temptation of Goblins. In the end Lizzie’s love prevails and she lifts her sister out of the murky depths of addiction. Some compare Lizzie to a Christ-like figure: since she is almost like a Martyr, resisting the temptation of poison to save her sister and redirecting her sister from the evils of Sensual love. “I hear the fruit-call, but I dare not look: You should not loiter longer at this brook: come with me home”. Rosseti, when describing the vicious and desperate struggle between Lizzie and the “Goblin Men” uses very aggressive alliteration, the whole passage is filled with actions synonymous with struggling and jostling, which alliterate to depict a very vivid portrayal of a tough and uncomfortable physical struggle:

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“They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
Twitched her hair out by the roots,
Stamped upon her tender feet”

However despite this vicious physical assault, as Rosseti says in the poem herself, “One may lead a horse to water ,Twenty cannot make him drink”. And in the end Lizzie does NOT drink, she rises up and stands resilient in the face of abuse and evil, showing that good will prevail, and that in the face of adversity and attack, amidst chaos and temptation the actions of the just and ...

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