View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. In the final stanza of Echo, the speaker's life is described as being cold in what?

2. What does the speaker in the first poem entitled Song say ought to be given to those in the flush of youth?

3. In what multi part fruit should the dais be carved in A Birthday?

4. What is the name of Maude Clare's male subject?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What characterizes the poem's speaker's commands to the rose and the bird in the first two stanzas of A Summer Wish?

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

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

4. What is a possible interpretation of the last line of the first stanza in the first poem entitled Song, "Grown old before my time"?

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

6. For what does the inn in Up-Hill stand as a metaphor, and what indicates this?

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

8. What is significant about the doves, lilies, and butterflies listed being in pairs in the second poem entitled Song?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Throughout a great deal of Rossetti's poetry, there is a connection drawn between life and love, between living and loving. This can be seen in At Home, A Triad, A Birthday, After Death, An End, and many others. Explicate in a thoroughly-developed analytical essay the significance of this connection. In what way are the two states or actions comparable? Why would one be linked with the other? What makes the two similar? How is this demonstrated in the various poems of Christina Rossetti? What does this connection reveal about human nature?

Essay Topic 2

Many of Rossetti's poems provide commentary on the uncertainty and the possibilities of life after death. Perusing the collection, compose an analytical essay which looks at the portrayals of life after death in-depth. In what ways is the uncertainty of life after death portrayed? Does it seem certain that there is life after death? What would indicate that there is? What would indicate that there is not? What do the poems indicate about speculating on life-after-death's existence? What do the poems seem to argue should be the disposition of someone towards life after death?

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 888 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample