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

2. What is the present given to the poem's lordly subject by Maude Clare in the poem of the same name?

3. What does the speaker in the first poem entitled Song say ought to be placed on her own grave?

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

5. In the second stanza of Echo, the speaker says that the dream's wakening should have been in what location?

Short Essay Questions

1. For what reason does the speaker ostensibly envy the rose and bird in A Summer Wish?

2. What is meant by the line "Or in this world, or in the world to come" in the last stanza of The First Spring Day?

3. What is the "it" of May?

4. Why does the great lord cast aside the poem's speaker in Cousin Kate?

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

6. How does Lizzie save her sister in Goblin Market?

7. With what sort of temptations do the first two enemies beleaguer the second speaker in The Three Enemies?

8. What is the attitude of the first speaker in A Bruised Reed Shall He Not Break to his auditor?

9. Why does the speaker attempt to cast off her expectations in A Pause of Thought?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Many of the poems in the collection, from The Convent Threshold through The World, deal with explicitly religious themes. Analyze the overall portrayal of religion in these poems in a thoughtful and insightful essay. How is religion portrayed in each individual poem? How is religion portrayed overall? With what sort of imagery and beliefs is religious practice associated? What do the poems indicate about religious belief? How do the speakers interact with religion? What does religion provide the speakers? What does faith provide?

Essay Topic 2

Goblin Market and Other Poems contains two poems which can definitively be identified as dramatic monologues: Winter: My Secret and No Thank You, John. Compose an analytical essay which examines these two works. How are they identified as dramatic monologues? Who are the speakers, and who are their auditors? What is the tone of the speakers towards their auditors? What do the speakers unwittingly reveal about themselves? What is the overall significance of each poem?

Essay Topic 3

A common narrative motif throughout this collection of poetry is the allegorical story. The two most eminent allegories in the story are An Apple Gathering and Goblin Market, but there are other stories which carry elements of allegory, such as Up-Hill or any of the poems involving Spring. Compose on analytical essay on the motif of allegory using the poems of Christina Rossetti to explicate. What defines allegory? How do the allegorical poems of Christina Rossetti differ from her non-allegorical poems? How does allegory achieve its non-literal signification? What are some specific examples, from Rossetti's poems, of allegory's means to achieving its non-literal signification?

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