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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. How many eyes ought the peacocks have in A Birthday?

2. Upon what does the poem's speaker's head rest in After Death?

3. In At Home, of what was the speaker in comparison to the conversation of those yet living?

4. To what is the bride of the poem compared in the first stanza of Maude Clare?

5. In Goblin Market, what location of significance will not grow grass?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the significance of "night" in the second poem entitled Song?

2. What is implied to be the meaning of the poem by the final stanza of An End?

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

4. How does the "she" change from day to night in The World?

5. What is the meaning of the phrase, "Where thirsting longing eyes / Watch the slow door / That opening, letting in, lets out no more" in Echo?

6. Why is the speaker unable to cast off her expectations in A Pause of Thought?

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 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"?

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

10. What is a possible interpretation of the meaning of the last four lines of Dream Land?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

As part of the consistent theme of temptation, The Three Enemies carries on a dialogue between the tempters to sin and the tempted speaker. Examine this poem in a carefully analytical essay, focusing on what the poem delivers as its ultimate signification. What are the temptations the Enemies use? What characterizes the temptations of the Enemies? How do the temptations correspond to the tempter, the particular Enemy? How does the speaker respond? What characterizes the speaker's responses? How do the responses correspond to the particular Enemy? In what way does the speaker conquer the temptations? What does this ultimately signify?

Essay Topic 2

A conventional poetic motif is introduced, but also partially inferred, in Rossetti's Another Spring, which operates primarily on the "If, then; but, therefore" structure. In this poem, the "if, then" half of the structure is explicitly stated, and the reader is supposed to infer the "but, therefore" half. Compose an essay which thoroughly analyzes this sort of poetic presentation, but the overall impact of the "If, then; but, therefore" structure and the immediate impact of the inference insisted upon by Another Spring. What purpose does the particular structure serve? How does this motif help to indicate truth? What purpose is served by the contrast? What purpose is served by having the reader supply half of the contrast himself? What does the poem signify overall? How is this signification accomplished?

Essay Topic 3

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?

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