When it was published in 1862, Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” was highly controversial. Despite her insistence that the poem was intended as a moralistic tale for children, Rossetti’s deeply sensual imagery lent itself to more adult interpretations involving issues of sexual agency and expression as well as the possibilities of physical and spiritual redemption. Her goblin men and their fruits are exotic and seductive, and her heroines are frequently described in lush physical detail. While these erotic themes do not detract from a purely didactic reading of the poem, Rossetti’s chosen imagery implies more complex themes to be uncovered as well.

Skills: analysis, drawing inferences from text, close reading, identifying the relationship between words

About This Document

The Owl Eyes Imagery activity gives students an opportunity to practice identifying and analyzing imagery. Imagery within a text creates a sensory experience that can connect readers to a text’s setting, atmosphere, or overall aesthetic. Studying imagery will help students understand how narrators or principal characters feel. The main components of this worksheet include the following:

• A brief introduction to the text
• A handout on types of imagery with examples from classic texts
• A step-by-step guide to activity procedure
• Selected examples of imagery from the text

In completing this worksheet, students will learn to identify and analyze different kinds of imagery in order to develop close reading skills and identify the effect imagery has on their reading experience.