Article: Christina Rossetti: illness and ideology.

Doubtless the most familiar references to illness in the poetry of Christina Rossetti appear in Goblin Market after Lizzie's sister Laura has banqueted on the sumptuous fruits proffered by the demonic Goblin men (the only males, one recalls, who actually appear in the poem). Ecstatic for the moment, Laura returns to the maidens' garden cottage promising to bring her sister "plums ... / Fresh on their mother twigs" and "cherries worth getting." She describes her feast in detail:

 
   "You cannot think what figs 
   My teeth have met in, 
   What melons icy-cold 
   Piled on a dish of gold 
   Too huge for me to hold, 
   What peaches with a velvet nap, 
   Pellucid ...

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