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

2. For what reason is Nell in Maude Clare pale?

3. What does the speaker in the first poem entitled Song say ought to be placed on the grave of those who died in their prime?

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

5. What lyrical form of poem is Remember?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Maude Clare, in the poem of the same name confront the newly-wedded couple?

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

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

4. For what reason is the poem's speaker in a celebratory mood in A Birthday?

5. Why does the passing of the "it" leave the speaker old, cold, and gray in May?

6. What is the meaning of the phrase, "The bright hues vanish and the odors fly, / The grass hath lasting worth" in Sweet Death?

7. Why does the poem's speaker find no apples in her apple tree in An Apple Gathering?

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

9. Does The One Certainty indicate a pure negativity or is there some indication of hope in the message?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

As Rossetti's poems turn more and more to religious devotion, the tone of her poems remains the same, but the content changes. Rather than have her speakers evince a desire for earthly love, they seek out sanctification and spiritual justification. In a rigorously developed and planned analytical essay, examine this transformation in desire. How are the earlier and later poems similar? How are they the same? What unites them? What distinguishes them? How are the later poems in some way a fulfillment of the earlier? What do the two sorts of desires reveal about human nature? What does the transformation in poetry reveal about human nature?

Essay Topic 2

Throughout Rossetti's poetry, there is a persistent theme of seeking hope. Though the speakers in her poems often indicate feelings of despair, and though all seems oftentimes to be lost, there is a recurrence of if not hope, at the very least the hoping for, the desiring for hope. This is particularly evident in the devotional poems towards the end of the collection. Compose an analytical essay which examines this theme. In which poems is it evident? How is it generally portrayed? In what ways is hope persistently present throughout the collection? What imagery is used to represent hope? How is this imagery portrayed? What is significant about this imagery? In what ways is hope eventually found? In what does hope subsist?

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 921 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample