‘Come with me, sweetest sister’: Unravelling the Enigma of Sacred Sisterhood in Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti

Abstract

Throughout the Victorian era, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti occupied a prominent position in a newly emerging female literary movement. Both authors sought to resist and revise the limitations of Victorian womanhood through the composition of controversial works that rivalled the achievements of their male contemporaries. In the 1856 epic Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the 1862 narrative poem “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti, both Barrett Browning and Rossetti employ an early feminist perspective to explore the parameters of Victorian sisterhood and the potential strength of female friendship. Although Laura, Lizzie and Jeanie in Rossetti’s work possess a sororal relationship that is distinct from Marian Erle and Aurora Leigh’s relationship in Barrett Browning’s work, the innumerable connections between both publications have caused critics to compare and hierarchize the two authors. Thus, a literary sisterhood has developed between Barrett Browning and Rossetti that curiously mirrors the sisterhoods of their fictions. This paper seeks to assess the inescapable presence of sisterhood in Aurora Leigh and “Goblin Market” by analyzing the manner in which a sisterly connection, not only through blood relations but also through close friendships that resemble sisterhood, allowed female forces to be allied, nurtured, and empowered amidst the patriarchal and misogynist structures of mid-nineteenth century Britain.