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 what metal ought the fleurs-de-lys be worked in A Birthday?

2. What does the speaker in the first poem entitled Song say ought to be given to her?

3. Which of the following is the poem's speaker's heart NOT like in A Birthday?

4. To which of the following does the poem's speaker insist the bird should sing in A Summer Wish?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Who is the "she" of The World, and what indicates this interpretation?

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

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

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

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

7. Why would the speaker not plant summer flowers and wait, as described in the first stanza of Another Spring?

8. For what reason does the poem's speaker feel the need to seek repentance in The Convent Threshold?

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

10. What is the attitude of the speaker in No Thank You, John towards John?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

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 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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