Jonty Claypole

But apparently, without permanent results, the young puma begins to bite."

And I think this image of animals squabbling and quarreling next to one another in the zoo is directly translated into the goblins rolling on top of one another, who are indeed wombat-like as well.

Well, I mean, fair enough.

Nobody wants to live next to Dr. Doolittle.

I mean, you want to read about him, but you don't want to live next to him.

Hard agree, Sophie.

And here's some direct smoking quills to connect that.

The genius of this poem is there is no single interpretation.

There's many, but they all hold up.

And one is that it is Christina Rossetti.

writing a sort of comeback to the aggressive masculinity of the pre-Raphaelite movement.

So let us not forget that one of the two sisters in this poem is Lizzie, which is the name of her brother's mistress, Lizzie Siddle, and eventually her brother's wife.

Lizzie was treated terribly by these men and she became very ill.

She became an opium addict.

Rossetti finally married her when she was very unwell and she died the same year that Goblin Market was published.

It's a fairly tragic story.

In Goblin Market, the interesting thing is Lizzie is not the sister who succumbs to the goblins.

Lizzie is the one who resists.

And I think one of the things Christina Rossetti is doing is rewriting Lizzie's life.

So I think the goblins, as we said before, are very clearly these hectoring, sexually aggressive men.