Rozon, Francis (2023) Feasts and Fasts: Christina Rossetti’s Public Banquet and the Nineteenth-Century Politics of Femininity. Masters thesis, Concordia University.
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Abstract
More often than not, critical readings of Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” tend to frame the poem as a revision of the female tale of temptation by focusing on the goblin men and fruit as their primary object of interpretation. This essay instead proposes to analyze Rossetti’s poem through its “food plots” consisting of more neglected elements and activities happening simultaneously around the goblin market. The feasts and culinary activities of Rossetti’s heroines in Speaking Likenesses, the poet’s response to Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, are considered alongside those of “Goblin Market” in order to extricate the ways in which these so-called food plots represent scenes of celebration of feminine hunger and industriousness in a rapidly expanding world of commodities. Drawing mainly from works by scholars such as Michael Parrish Lee, Helena Michie, Ronjaunee Chatterjee, and John Ruskin, the essay intends to demonstrate how Rossetti makes use of representations of food consumption and of the labor surrounding its production in her application to imagine a world where the Victorian woman is free to be industrious in the development of her sense of individuality.
| Divisions: | Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > English |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
| Authors: | Rozon, Francis |
| Institution: | Concordia University |
| Degree Name: | M.A. |
| Program: | English |
| Date: | July 2023 |
| Thesis Supervisor(s): | Camlot, Jason |
| Keywords: | christina rossetti, goblin market, speaking likenesses, victorian literature, victorian poetry, victorian women's writing, women's writing, food studies, criticism, literary criticism |
| ID Code: | 992663 |
| Deposited By: | Francis Rozon |
| Deposited On: | 15 Nov 2023 15:36 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Nov 2023 15:36 |
References:
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Ruskin, John. Unto This Last. University of Nebraska Press, 1967.
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