By Jem Alabi
In Oscar Wilde’s essay “English Poetesses,” though strategically placed between general compliments regarding her form, Christina Rossetti’s poetry is criticized for its inability to reach “more sunlit heights of song, a larger vision, and an ampler air, a music at once more passionate and more profound, a creative energy that is born of the spirit, etc.” Though he states that he admires her “subtle choice of words” and “artistic naïveté,” he believed that Rossetti was put on “too lofty of a pedestal” and the nature of his praise, which seems intentionally vague, reflects this. Funnily enough, just three years later Wilde would meet Lord Alfred Douglas, the young student with whom he would engage in an affair which would lead to Wilde’s imprisonment. Douglas once sent a letter to Wilde that read: “when you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting.” With or without a pedestal, both Rossetti and Wilde’s writings were influenced by the distance they kept with their faith. Perhaps it was Rossetti’s devotional writing style that prevented Wilde from truly connecting with her work, since Wilde was known for his agnostic beliefs and lifestyle characterized by indulgence. Eventually Wilde would turn to Catholicism on his death bed but a few years prior to this when he wrote De Profundis he openly revealed his reservations about organized religion despite his deep respect for Jesus Christ, even going so far to compare himself with Christ, claiming that they were both individualists at their core.
Wilde was specifically unimpressed by Rossetti’s “consecration of the priest” which he might’ve thought was limiting and unimaginative, whereas his pursuance of constant pleasure fueled his writing with the exact “fervor” he claimed Rossetti lacked but thought that someone like the great poetess Sappho (and of course himself) did. An excerpt from “English Poetesses” reads:
“…our woods have become full of singing birds, and if I venture to ask them to apply themselves more to prose and less to song, it is not that I like poetical prose, but that I love the prose of poets (Wilde 1888).”
Christina Rossetti loved God but struggled with temptation which is suggested by the sexual undertones in poems such as “Goblin Market.” Her writing shows that she was certainly curious about sex and matters of the flesh in general. Though Rossetti’s devotion to God was always the framework in which her poetry was written, Rossetti didn’t shy away from her humanness and therefore had a better grasp on her fascinations. In this way, Rossetti was consistent while on the contrary, Wilde was often conflicted. Wilde loved gratification, and though he didn’t regret the ways in which he luxuriated, when he was imprisoned, he soon felt that his absolute suffering was the only way he could’ve learned to live better. Wilde could only seem to operate on the extremes of suffering and pleasure as opposed to Rossetti who may have mastered a balance between the intersections of religion and praxis, something Wilde could’ve learned from. Though at times it seemed Rossetti and Wilde’s fascinations directly opposed standard Christian practice but in their explorations of faith, among their confusion and certitude, their writing indicates a strong connection with Christ in ways that often differed but occasionally evinced in similar ways.
In “Goblin Market”, Christina Rossetti explores themes of sex, sexuality, and the role that Jesus Christ plays in her life. Around the time that “Goblin Market” was published, critics and scholars had begun to recognize that Rosetti’s poetic voice hinted at an internal struggle between her flesh and spirit. There was a clear difference between her “secular” and “devotional” poetry. Victorian era critic Nadean Bishop wrote that “we might go on quoting with pleasure and admiration most of these devotional pieces, but enough has been given to show how different a writer is Miss Rossetti in her religious and in her worldly mood (Knittel 1998).” Poems such as “An Apple Gathering” and “In an Artist’s Studio” might be considered some of her more “worldly” works since they don’t directly reference God and display feminist motifs as opposed to the “devotional” writing she primarily wrote. With this duality in mind, “Goblin Market” appears to be the perfect blend of her two “moods.”
Though she wrote about sex, Rossetti’s work paints a picture of a woman whose ambivalence towards intimacy was a source of deep contemplation. Of course, she was not openly for it, but she did acknowledge its power. Rossetti famously rejected three proposals and stayed unmarried until death, but her religion seemed to shield her from the taboo (though this isn’t to say she was exempt from all scrutiny, the stakes were just lower which correlates with her place in society). In a piece published by the Mythopoeic Society, Mary Werner explains:
“For Rossetti, exercising restraint and caution in sexual relations would have been natural and expected. In an era characterized by at least the outward pretense of prudery,
and in which the Queen had raged against the exploitation of women by “insatiable husbands” Rossetti’s attitude is fairly unremarkable. What makes her views interesting is the conflict between her Christian ideals…”
This proves that Rossetti’s abstinence was quite alright and even a hallmark of the Victoria era, so Rossetti truly didn’t need to explain herself which makes the intention behind “Goblin Market” that much more complex. Werner goes on to describe Rossetti as “prurient” which would have clashed with her beliefs. Rossetti deals with this struggle in her writing and frames it as a lesson in “Goblin Market” but whether it was written as a general warning or something more personal is worth discussing because it was likely both. (Werner 1998)
In the first stanza of the poem, the fruits that the goblins are peddling parallel the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden which is meant to emphasize the potency of the temptation. The “Rare pears and greengages/Damsons and bilberries” are genuinely enticing, so much so that Rossetti was publicly criticized for her depiction. A writer for the Catholic World believed that “the narrative was morally deficient in its symbolic portrayal of the conflict between sense and spirit because it failed to denounce (and properly punish) the human tendency to yield to temptation.” In this perspective, the writer claims that Rossetti had the opportunity to characterize sin in a way that would have made salvation the obvious choice when confronted with heresy, but she did not. This might have been because Rossetti didn’t believe that such a depiction was realistic and that it wasn’t unnatural for humans to give in to their flesh especially when it’s so seductive. Other critics leaned into this possibility and referred to the fruit as “so deliciously painted, that we almost forgive poor Laura for yielding to their seductions (Kooistra 1994).” This speaks to the idea that Rossetti’s sympathies lie with women because Laura, though she strayed, is redeemed by the end of the poem. It is deliberate that the women are portrayed as vulnerable, and the goblins are portrayed as men. This is conceivably how Rossetti viewed the world and there is evidence to support this.
Apropos of how allegorical “Goblin Market” is, the poem is dedicated to Rossetti’s sister, Maria Francesca. Maria was an Anglican nun that Rossetti deeply admired. If the reader contextually interprets the characters of Laura and Lizzie, then it is fair to say that the fictional pair of sisters might have been forged in the likeness of Rossetti and her dear sister Maria. In the same way that Lizzie’s resolve was stronger than Laura’s in the poem, Rossetti perceived Maria Francesca as a stalwart champion of Christ. According to Werner, in comparison to her sister, Rossetti “reportedly considered herself chargeable with some sort of spiritual backsliding” (Werner 1998). This statement is salient because it recognizes an occasional, yet notable distance between Rossetti and God that had the potential to fluctuate.
As the poem continues, the depictions of Laura and Lizzie become more specific and what separates them becomes clear. In the second stanza and in response to the call of the goblins “Laura bow’d her head to hear/Lizzie veil’d her blushes.” Laura draws nearer to the temptation and Lizzie must force herself to physically look away. It’s important to note that Lizzie was not immune to the prospect of indulgence which manifests in her “blushes.” Lizzie has a human reaction to the stimulus of something new and even though she understands that it’s wrong, her flesh responds before her mind can. Rossetti is affirming her own opinion on devotion by purposefully not making Lizzie’s commitment intrinsic, but instead something that she must actively choose and practice. While Lizzie attempted to ignore the goblins, Rossetti writes:
“Laura stretch’d her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.”
Once again inferring that Laura symbolizes Rossetti, Laura is characterized by her proximity to the sin and she is written as a frivolous, constantly moving thing lacking all “restraint.” Rossetti is confirming that she does have a “worldly mood” and that its naiveté makes her susceptible to doubt. This can be seen as Rossetti not believing that she is better than any other person especially not her sister and to drive this point home, Lizzie’s character develops a stronger disposition to accommodate her own weakness and that of her fallen sister. Laura eventually gives into sin in the sixth stanza and when Lizzie notices this, it is as if she takes on the characteristics of Christ as martyr and savior. This not only demonstrates how highly Rossetti thought of her sister, but also how the role of the supernatural had to intervene to save Laura from eternal suffering:
“White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood,—
Like a rock of blue-vein’d stone
Lash’d by tides obstreperously,—
Like a beacon left alone”
This image of Lizzie borrows biblical aspects that make Jesus her counterpart. “White and golden” represents heaven and light, and the “lily in a flood” might be in reference to a Bible verse in Song of Solomon where Jesus calls himself the “rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.” William Sharp who wrote the biography of Rosetti’s brother Dante Gabriel comments on this sudden change in Lizzie: “there is no consistency between the Lizzie of this and of the succeeding design; in the first, she being a regular country-girl frightened at the goblin rout, and in the second a stately Rossettian lady (Kooistra 1994).” Perhaps Rossetti is trying to say that her sister, regardless of how much she loved her, could not save Laura with her own constitution. Whether she had to appropriate Jesus’ power or simply become Christ himself, Lizzie becomes a stand in for the Son of God.
Ultimately, Laura was saved by divine intervention. Rossetti paints a picture of humanity that is flawed, and she is no exception. By the end of the poem, Laura and Lizzie can live in peace again but that peace is coupled with allusions that are outright libidinous. In a piece published by Victorian Poetry, Lorraine Janzen Kooistra writes: “In the last decade, critics have begun to move away from the conceptualization of the Victorian spinster as a repressed individual whose ‘sexuality was unknown to her and begun to argue that Christina Rossetti “knew what she was doing when she wrote passages” like ‘Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices’ and Laura ‘kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth’ “(Kooistra 1994).” The sexual desire that Laura (or Rossetti) grappled with did not simply vanish once the goblins were out of the picture, in fact, the sexual overtone was redirected into a vacuum of female empowerment, camaraderie, maybe even fantasy, and through Rossetti’s lens, this is more acceptable.
Rossetti’s conclusion is that helping other women keep their purity was how she could confront her conflicts with sex in a positive way. Her work with prostitutes at the Church Penitentiary Association was a large part of her life and it was her personal goal to help women be free from exploitation and sin. No matter how explicit the poem “Goblin Market” reads, Mary Werner states that “it is undoubtedly a didactic one as well. Motherhood is validated, as is platonic love between sisters, but all other forms of sexuality are questioned or rejected (Werner 1998).” Christ always takes up space in Rossetti’s periphery and so she created a world where sex is not forbidden to explore but can only operate within contexts that don’t stray from her beliefs.
Though Christina Rossetti’s poetry indicated a degree of liberalism, especially for the Victorian times, there were parameters that her work existed within and ostensibly never crossed. This is because she was quite secure within her Anglo-Catholicism whereas her contemporary Oscar Wilde was something of a mercurial Christian. Wilde grew up in a strict protestant home, was queer, and notoriously self-seeking which meant that he never aligned himself with a particular sect of Christianity for very long. In volume 33 of Late Nineteenth-Century Contextual and Psychological Configurations public by the University of Texas it is explained that due to Wilde’s flair for the devious and his homosexuality, “a sense of guilt or remorse seems inescapable within a Victorian context, unless Wilde could reject Christianity and embrace atheism or any religious position that countenanced his behavior and freed him of religious scruples regarding his mode of life (Quintus 1991).” This insinuates that if Wilde prioritized pleasure as much as he claimed in De Profundis then he would’ve (or perhaps should’ve) avoided organized religion as a whole, but for some reason he decided to refashion Christianity into a more personal and lenient practice that better served his purposes: “His interpretation of Christianity is both subjective and heterodox, yet consonant with his less than rigorous manner of dealing with complex matters (Quintus 1991).” Wilde has even admitted that his characters are often reflections of himself and if Dorian Gray or Algernon Moncrieff can be considered as such, then it’s not difficult to get a sense of the kind of man Wilde was, or at least thought he was.
So, the question is why? Why did Wilde not fully break away from religion? Nearly 50 years after Wilde’s death Noel O’Mahoney of The Irish Monthly wrote an article about Wilde’s complex relationship with the Church: “Wilde’s real beliefs are not always easy to come by in his writings, for he was very much a poseur and his affectations are able to deceive us as they sometimes deceived himself. Moreover he had a mind that was full of contradictions and inconsistencies: he was at once sceptic and believer, cynic and sentimentalist, snob and anti-snob, pagan and admirer of Christ (O’Mahoney 1951).” Though a bit strident, O’Mahoney is correct in his representation of Wilde. In De Profundis, much of Wilde’s musings are far from consonant but that can simply be attributed to the human condition which leaves plenty of room for rumination and indecision.
Per adventure Wilde did believe in God or just never quite found the spiritual branch to which he may have belonged but one thing about Wilde was always certain: his devotion was not blind. In De Profundis, he notes that “whether it be faith or agnosticism, it must be nothing external to me. Its symbols must be of my own creating. Only that is spiritual which makes its own form. If I may not find its secret within myself, I shall never find it: if I have not got it already, it will never come to me.” Wilde believed in art and beauty because he recognized it inside of himself the same way he did not truly recognize suffering until he landed in prison. Naturally, Wilde’s religion and aestheticism had very similar fundamentals. He was convinced that “beauty and sorrow walk hand in hand and have the same message.” For Wilde, art is a kind of love that comes from observations of beauty found in the natural world and internally. Following this train of thought, Wilde stresses the idea that real religion must exist on a personal level and so this is how he was able to connect with Christ. In Wilde’s eyes, Jesus is the embodiment of love, morality, and sympathy, all concepts that Wilde came to value during his imprisonment at Reading Gaol.
O’Mahoney writes that a Catholic priest once told a friend of Wilde that he did not have the correct “disposition” to become a Catholic. Wilde was attracted to the Catholic aesthetic and was willing to give it a try, but the priest said that “The finger of God has not yet touched him. There will come some day, I am convinced, a crisis in his life, when he will turn to the Ark of Peter as his only refuge (O’Mahoney 1951).” This prophetic word was eerily accurate because it wasn’t until Wilde was imprisoned that he began to view himself through the lens of Christ. In De Profundis, Wilde drastically shifts from lamenting over his shortcomings in life to a dialogue about Christ. Wilde felt that he and Christ were cut from the same cloth and that Jesus’ message was a summation of Wilde’s ethos. He describes Christ as having “all the colour elements of life: mystery, strangeness, pathos, suggestion, ecstasy, love.” Wilde asserts that this is why Christ was “so fascinating to artists” but it’s possible that he was merely explaining why Christ was fascinating to him. Wilde’s own fascinations were an amalgamation of the qualities he thought Christ to be, hence loving Christ became a way to preserve his own fascinations. If he could no longer chase the pleasures of life, then he could at least co-opt it through a figure he theoretically has unlimited access to.
Blessed are the pure of heart, or according to Wilde, those who know suffering. Wilde believed that Jesus most deeply resonated with the poor and the grieving so through persecution Wilde acquainted himself with Christ and was able to realize his soul which eventually allowed him to essentially uncover the meaning of life. Suffering = salvation. In De Profundis, he goes on to say:
“Above all, Christ is the most supreme of individualists. Humility, like the artistic, acceptance of all experiences, is merely a mode of manifestation. It is man’s soul that Christ is always looking for. He calls it ‘God’s Kingdom,’ and finds it in every one. He compares it to little things, to a tiny seed, to a handful of leaven, to a pearl. That is because one realises one’s soul only by getting rid of all alien passions, all acquired culture, and all external possessions, be they good or evil.”
This conclusion is quite contrived. To call Christ an individualist is a distinct departure from how Christ viewed himself. Christ considered himself a vessel through which sinners could directly access God, so it is interesting that Wilde perceives Jesus to be self-reliant, though the idea is not unreasonable. If humility is the key to the soul, then yes, Christ was humility personified and probably the best example of being in touch with one’s soul. What humans deem as important is just a series of “little things” that prevent individuality which is why Wilde thinks of Jesus as an artist, maybe even art itself. He used his gifts and resources to help others access “God’s Kingdom” and encouraged others to do so as well. Under Wilde’s interpretation of Christ, to reach self-perfection, “the poet must sing, and the sculptor think in bronze, and the painter make the world a mirror for his moods, as surely and as certainly as the hawthorn must blossom in spring” just as Christ was able to impact lives through miracles and outreach. But can Christ truly be called an individual when his purpose was so contingent on the people he interacted with? Christ and his followers almost entirely make up the second half of the Bible. To this point, Wilde says that Christ “was the denial as well as the affirmation of prophecy. For every expectation that he fulfilled there was another that he destroyed.” So yes, he changed lives as he was expected to but only because “by being brought into his presence one becomes something.” This is a statement that Rossetti would most likely agree with: Knowing Christ is a transformative experience. But Wilde seemed to think that a relationship with Christ could only be formed through extremes.
While in prison, Wilde lost parental rights to his children and recalled that:
“It was a blow so appalling that I did not know what to do, so I flung myself on my knees, and bowed my head, and wept, and said, ‘The body of a child is as the body of the Lord: I am not worthy of either.’ That moment seemed to save me. I saw then that the only thing for me was to accept everything. Since then—curious as it will no doubt sound—I have been happier. It was of course my soul in its ultimate essence that I had reached. In many ways I had been its enemy, but I found it waiting for me as a friend. When one comes in contact with the soul it makes one simple as a child, as Christ said one should be.”
In wanting a soul “simple as a child” Wilde seems to regress. Losing his position as a father made him revert to a passive version of himself. Trapped within his loneliness, he felt that his only hope of companionship could come from within. It’s hard to say whether a conclusion like this is fair to approach and examine under such duress. With no other humanly available option, Wilde’s decision to let go of humanity, or at least the aspects of humanity that separate man from Christ, had been realized through desperation and pain, but not entirely a result of his actions. Wilde’s only crime was homosexuality which speaks more to the systems of oppression that he was subject to and because of this, his experience was quite unique. Wilde acknowledges this by writing that “It is tragic how few people ever ‘possess their souls’ before they die…Most people are other people.” Wilde’s queerness separated him from society both literally and figuratively and by framing Christ as the ultimate individual, Wilde was able to create a kind of happy ending for himself, despite the extreme measures it took for him to get to such a point.
In the grand scheme of things, circumstance created the ways in which Christina Rossetti and Oscar Wilde incorporated religion into their writing, which supports Wilde’s theory that religion is personal. Rossetti had the privilege of fitting in with the Victorian manner of life and was privileged enough to die in that same way more or less whereas Wilde died as a pariah. Still, they both saw Christ as aspirational. They also both found purpose in the desire to help others. Rossetti became a champion for underserved women during her time, and Wilde became a prominent voice in the discussion about prison reform. In De Profundis, he claimed that he “would give anything to alter it” and that he would “intend to try.” Like he stated, his sympathy became his morality and regardless of their differences, Rossetti and Wilde were conscious of the fact that above all, kindness is the language of the heavens.
Citations
Knittel, Janna. “KNOCKING AT PARADISE: CHRISTINA ROSETTI REWRITES ‘THE BLESSED DAMOZEL.’” Victorian Review, vol. 24, no. 1, 1998, pp. 12–28. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27794886. Accessed 12 Dec. 2023.
Kooistra, Lorraine Janzen. “Modern Markets for ‘Goblin Market.’” Victorian Poetry, vol. 32, no. 3/4, 1994, pp. 249–77. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40002818. Accessed 12 Dec. 2023.
O’Mahony, Noel. “Oscar Wilde and the Church.” The Irish Monthly, vol. 79, no. 931, 1951, pp. 26–31. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20516302. Accessed 13 Dec. 2023.
Quintus, John Allen. “Christ, Christianity, and Oscar Wilde.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 33, no. 4, 1991, pp. 514–27. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40754965. Accessed 12 Dec. 2023.
Werner, Mary. “Forbidden Foods and Guilty Pleasures: In Lewis’ ‘The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe’ and Christina Rosetti’s ‘Goblin Market.’” Mythlore, vol. 22, no. 2 (84), 1998, pp. 18–21. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26812460. Accessed 12 Dec. 2023.
Wilde, Oscar. A Critic in Pall Mall; Being Extracts from Reviews and Miscellanies by Oscar Wilde. Ed. E. V. Lucas. London: Methuen, 1919. Source of text: Project Gutenberg eBook #30191 release date October 6, 2009, transcribed by David Price.
