ABSTRACT
The author's essay departs delightfully from the conventions of the academic article. She introduces autobiography and uncertainty into the form, refusing to pretend to the usual objectivity and 'mastery'. As the word 'mastery' suggests, this disruption of form can be seen as part of a feminist project. 'Winter Rain' is conjured out of rigorous repetition and the iteration of negations. Goblin Market, where the 'good' Lizzie smears the goblins' forbidden fruit on the face of the 'bad' Laura, who had been denied the fruit she once bought with a piece of herself, her own hair, took on a new meaning. The play of desire and restriction, Laura and Lizzie, create one another and the play of opposition is enabling. But Christina Rossetti chooses to distort and intensify the opposition between Laura and Lizzie in this poem because she sees that the play of desire and repression is subjected to a fierce economic and ethical code in their world.
