Jonty Claypole

Come by, come by.

By the way, one of the astonishing revelations that everyone's going to have about Christina Rossetti is we're getting the impression here probably of a poet who's very liberated.

You may be getting George Eliot vibes or something.

Christina Rossetti is the exact opposite.

She is a very evangelical Christian who almost becomes a nun at one point.

And that's one of the amazing contradictions going on in this poem.

But what happens next is, oh dear, oh dear, Laura goes back home and finds that she is obsessed by the fruit and by the goblins.

She's become addicted to the goblin fruit.

And the way that she is described from this point is a fairly accurate representation of a opium addict in the 19th century who hasn't got their fix.

She starts to fade away.

She cannot think about anything else.

And the terrible thing is that from this moment, she can no longer hear the goblins because she has transgressed.

Meanwhile, Lizzie, her more restrained sister, can hear them.

The idea is that once you've given in to the goblins, they're no longer interested in you.

And Lizzie continues to hear the goblins calling.

And it reaches a crisis moment where Lizzie thinks Laura will die unless something is done.

And Lizzie goes out to confront the goblins.

And this is how she encounters the goblins.

Laughed every goblin when they spied her peeping.

Came towards her hobbling, flying, running, leaping, puffing and blowing, chuckling, clapping, crowing, clucking and gobbling, mopping and mowing.