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Isle of Lesbos : Poetry : Historical : Christina Rossetti

Christina Rosetti
1830-1894

While Christina Rossetti was not a lesbian (as far as I know) a few scholars find passages of her popular Goblin Market to be suggestion of lesbianism. Here is an excerpt:

From Goblin Market, lines 183-197 "Laura and Lizzie Asleep"

Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other's wings,
They lay down their curtained bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem
Like two flakes of new-fall'n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipped with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gazed in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapped to and fro
Round their nest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Locked together in one nest.

Where to Read More...

• Christina Rossetti, a web page including biographical material, works, and lots more...
• Goblin Market (complete text)
• Christina Rossetti, Selected Poetry
• Christina Rossetti, The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti, volume 1, Rebecca Crump (Editor) (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1979)
• Christina Rossetti, The Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti (Editor) (London: MacMillan, 1904, 1911)
• Jeannette Foster, Sex Variant Women in Literature (Tallahassee: Naiad Press, 1956, 1985), pp. 74-76
• Georgina Battiscombe, Christina Rossetti: A Divided Life (London: Constable, 1981)
• Kathleen Jones, Leaerning Not to Be First: The Life of Christina Rossetti (Gloucestershire: Windrush Press, 1991)
• Dorothy Mermin, "Heroic Sisterhood in Goblin Market" Victorian Poetry 21 (Summer 1983), pp 107-118