Romantic and Victorian Era

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and feelings that the picture really jumps right off the page. Her work was very popular in the 1880’s.

Both poems have similarities. One of the similarities is in the feeling of regret. In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” the Mariner kills the bird for no reason. After the winds stop and he watches each of his crew members die one by one he realizes what he did was very wrong. He says,

“’God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—

Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow.

I shot the ALBATROSS.”

He sees now there was no reason for him to do this to an innocent creature that did nothing wrong. He wishes that he would have not made this decision.

In “Goblin Market” Laura eats the fruit from the Goblins after being warned by her sister not to. She then starts to die from the juices in the fruit. Her sister is also beaten and forced to eat the fruit because she would follow her sisters footsteps. It says,

“She suck’d until her lips were sore…

And knew not was it night or day

As she turn’d home alone…

Till Laura dwindling.

Seem’d knocking at Death’s door…

Your young life like mine be wasted,

Undone in mine undoing,

And ruin’d in my ruin,

Thirsty, canker’d, goblin-ridden?"

Laura regrets her decision on eating the forbidden fruit because now she is craving it and slowly dying. When she sees her sister running home with the juice on her face she is afraid that she has too eaten the fruit. She starts to panic because she does not want her to waste away too.

The second similarity is the happy realization of love in the end. Tin “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” the mariner realizes what God has created after his curse has been lifted. He no longer saw hideous monsters in the sea, but beautiful creatures and things. He also realized that God made his creatures in his image and if there is not a reason for killing them then you shouldn’t. That is considered a sin and cruel. He tells the wedding guest,

“He prayeth best, who loveth best.

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.”

The Mariner realized how much God cares for his creations and saw a new side of the world he had never experienced before. In “Goblin Market” the sister realizes how much each other’s love means to them. The see that after one of them was near death the other would not leave her side. They tell their children there is not a love or friend like your sister. They protected each other, even when Laura did not heed her sisters warning about the goblins and their fruit. They say,

“Laura, make much of me;

For your sake I have braved the glen.

And had to do with goblin merchant men.….

Would tell them how her sister stood.

In deadly peril to do her good,...

To lift one if one totters down,

To strengthen whilst one stands.”

In these stanza Laura is expressing her gratitude to her sister in front of their children for saving her life. She knows that without her sister risking her life and going to get the fruit she would be dead.

As we look through each era, decade, or even century there are similarities in themes of many poems. They can be linked together when one looks beyond what is written and looks at the deeper message in each poem. We can see that in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Goblin Market” had similar themes of regret and love. Each had an unique way of showing them, but they can be connected.

Work Cited

http://www.gradesaver.com/christina-rossetti-poems/study-guide/summary-goblin-market-1862

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