Original cover illustration of Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market'

Sexuality in itself is not evil, just the goblins’ distorted representation of it, which is why their song is so seductive to virgins. These goblin men do not represent sexuality in general but its worldly aspect, carnal lust they desire to consume the body without its spiritual counterpart, the soul. It is a siren song that Laura and Lizzie, desiring neither to “see no evil” nor “hear no evil,” must avoid, for both see the goblin men as evil characters: “You should not peep at goblin men” (l. The goblins symbolically want their customers’ bodies, not money for their wares. The goblin men appear to sell fruit, but they really appeal to, and try to waken, women’s carnal lusts: “sweet to tongue and sound to eye” (l. Bloom‑down‑cheeked peaches, / Swart‑headed mulberries, /Wild free‑born cranberries /. What these goblins represent is clear by their seductive, sexually explicit, description of their fruity wares: “Plump unpecked cherries /. The poem begins with the goblin men’s continual cry, “Come buy, come buy” (l. Lizzie appears as a type of Christ in her redemption of Laura, but it is a role that encompasses both earthly and spiritual redemption. Instead, Lizzie and Laura learn to embrace both their earthly and spiritual natures in traditional, Victorian marriage. This poem is a story of renunciation, but not one of denying the body and its desires in order to embrace the spiritual nature of the soul. In 'Goblin Market' (1862), Christina Rossetti (1830‑1894) presents a story of two sisters who must endure carnal lust in order to embrace a higher and purer realm of sexuality: marriage.

In an absent dream