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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the first stanza of Echo, the speaker demands that her auditor come to her with eyes as bright as what?

2. Of what has the poem's auditor planned in Remember?

3. In what line does the poem turn from an exposition to a resolution in Remember?

4. What do the poem's speaker's neighbors do when they see her pass empty-handed in An Apple Gathering?

5. In Dream Land, what bird does the poem's subject hear singing?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why, of all the women in A Triad, do none achieve life?

2. How is it that life comes out of the depths of winter according to Rossetti's Spring?

3. What does the coldness in Winter: My Secret symbolize?

4. What fills the poem's speaker with sadness in At Home?

5. Why is the poem's speaker permanently separated from her once lover in An Apple Gathering?

6. What revenge is given to the poem's speaker in Cousin Kate?

7. What is ironic and somewhat paradoxical about the new-life brought on by Spring in the poem of the same name?

8. What is "the one certainty," as proposed in the poem of the same name?

9. Why might the man in After Death pity the poem's speaker now that she is dead?

10. What is to be inferred from the last clause of After Death, "and very sweet it is / To know he still is warm though I am cold"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Oftentimes the exact meaning of a poem can be difficult to discern by simply reading what is present on the page; the literal text demands that the reader make an inference based on what is written, without explicitly making it clear. This is perhaps most evident in The One Certainty, but can also be seen in Sweet Death, Dream Land and many others. Using examples from Rossetti's poetry, write an analytical essay on the process of valid inference of meaning from a poem in which the literal meaning obscures the deeper significance. What are some examples of this inference? How is this inference made? What validates such inference? What are the difficulties of making such an inference? How should such an inference be portrayed?

Essay Topic 2

Perhaps the dominant theme in all of the poems in the collection is the temporality of earthly happiness. Compose an analytical essay which, in perusing the entirety of the collection, designates a comprehensive portrayal of earthly happiness. In what poems is there a commentary upon happiness? How is happiness portrayed in each individual poem? What is demonstrated by the poems individually? What is demonstrated by the poems overall? Against what is the temporality of earthly happiness contrasted? What do these presentations reveal about human nature?

Essay Topic 3

In Goblin Market, one theme which emerges from the overall story is the strength of and relation between love and sacrifice. In a well-developed essay analyze the portrayal of love and love's manifestation by sacrifice. How is love portrayed in the poem? Why is sacrifice necessary to love? Against what do love and sacrifice contrast? What sort of actions accompany true love and genuine sacrifice? The etymological root of sacrifice means to "make sacred"; how is this portrayed and demonstrated in the characters and actions of Goblin Market? What does the poem demonstrate about the relationships between love, sacrifice, and human nature?

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