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Feminism in Goblin Market: the Economics of the Victorian Woman

October 11, 2021

academia, capitalism, criticism, economy, feminism, Gothic, literature, poetry, society, Victorian

I’ve been going through a… Goblin Market phase recently, as you might recall. So, I decided to write a brief, accessible post on feminism in Goblin Market. Christina Rossetti’s poem is rich in symbolism, and an interpretation related to feminism and economics couldn’t be absent.

Academic criticism has explored feminism in Goblin Market – a lot – so I’m certainly not breaking any new ground here. After all, this post is based on my BA thesis and therefore isn’t exceptionally deep or analytic to begin with. However, I still think there are intriguing viewpoints in it, with important repercussions for our times, too.

Is feminism in Goblin Market about sex? Is it about control? It’s about these and more. Nonetheless, my focus is mostly on economic independence: how the Victorian woman (and, by association any woman) is as free as her ability to provide for herself and set the rules of the (economic) game. The lessons from the Victorian era are still applicable today, and feminism in Goblin Market is, I’d argue, pertinent to many of our contemporary discussions.

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What Setting Goblin Market to Music Taught Me about Writing Fiction

September 6, 2021

Writing

affect, experiencing, fiction, music, poetry, sounds, writing

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Recently, on a whim, I decided to set Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market to music. I had a lot of fun doing that, as I expected. What I didn’t expect was that the experience would teach me something about writing fiction. But remember, art is holistic.

The reason I decided to share my experience of adapting Goblin Market to music is that it makes for an excellent teaching opportunity. In other words, I want to share with you what I learned from this, because I believe it can be very efficient for anyone interested in writing fiction.

At the end of this post, I’ll also share a link to the album, which you can stream or download for free.

goblin market music — Cover of the *Goblin Market* music album. The Focus Protocol is a lo-fi music vehicle for some of my artistic ideas

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A JavaScript Poem Shuffler

July 18, 2020

Programming

creativity, defamiliarization, javascript, meaning, poetry, programming

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As I’ve mentioned many times on the blog, meaning is a very fluid concept in literature. This fact inspired me to see what happens when we completely distort the author’s original intention, while still maintaining some minimal cohesion. This JavaScript poem shuffler was the result.

As the name perhaps implies, my JavaScript poem shuffler takes a poem and randomly reorganizes its lines.

Now, you might have two questions about this:

Doesn’t that render the poem meaningless?
Why should we care?

Amazingly, both these questions have the same answer, as we’ll see in more detail. Briefly, let me just say that this little coding exercise also provides us with excellent teaching material in terms of affective power and, indeed, the creation of meaning in literature.

JavaScript Poem Shuffler — Apparently chaotic patterns can still hold meaning – if they are predicated on **affect**. This JavaScript poem shuffler is a good example of this

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