Matthew Arnold “Dover Beach”
What are the poem's stanza forms and rhythms? What forms of sound patterning does it use?
What seems to be the poem's subject? What are some features of its language and style? How does it differ from some of the poems we've read earlier?
What is the poem's sequence of ideas? What is Arnold's view of the prospects for human happiness?
What are some implications of the opening metaphor of the sea by the French coast and cliffs of Dover? Why the reference to Sophocles? What metaphor does Arnold use to describe Victorian "Faith"? To what kinds of faith may he refer?
What images are used in the poem? Range of colour images? What range of classical references are used, and for what purposes?
To whom is the poem addressed? What does the speaker ask of himself and of (presumably) her? Do we need to know more?
What does the speaker advocate as a refuge in a chaotic world? What effect is created by introducting the "love" in stanza 3?
What is the speaker's assessment of the world? How do the sounds of the last stanza reinforce its meaning?
What effect is created by the classical metaphor "Where ignorant armies clash by night"? What is the poem's final tone?
Do you find the conclusion satisfactory? What remains the only hope in the world?
Christina Rossetti “Winter: My Secret”
What effect is created by the poet's use of rhythms and stanza form? By her diction and syntax?
Is the poem colloquial in its diction and meter?
What use is made of the metaphor of the seasons? Why do you think autumn is omitted from the sequence?
To what extent does the speaker find winter attractive? Difficult to endure? Does her mood fluctuate and shift?
How do you interpret the poem's ending? Will the speaker ever reveal her secret?
What attitudes towards secrecy, privacy and identity does the speaker reveal?
Can the reader have any notion of the nature of the secret? Do you think it is literary? Romantic? Non-existent? Indeterminate?
Would you describe this poem as coy? sad? What does the poet mean by "just my fun"?
Does the speaker of this poem seem to believe that full communication is possible?
“Sleeping at Last”
What are qualities of the poem's stanza form and language?
What is added the poem by its repetitions? How do its rhythms and sounds support its meaning?
What may Christina Rossetti have meant by "sleeping"? Are the poem's statements consistent with/expressions of the poet's devout Christianity? Does the poem suggest that the sleeper will experience heaven?
What do we know about the subject? What account is given of her life? Why do you think the poet fails to mention her name or their relationship?
What function is served by the poem's images? Is the sequence of its stanzas cumulative?
“In An Artist's Studio”
What effect is created by the use of the sonnet form for this topic?
What contrast structures this poem? What descriptions are used for the artist's model as she appears in his drawings and paintings?
What words describe the artist's model in real life? Why is this contrast significant?
What level of meaning is added by the poem's final line?
It has been suggested that this poem is a critique of her brother's relationship with his fiance/model, Elizabeth Siddal, whom he drew and painted in dozens of pictures, and who suffered from ill health during their long engagement. Others have thought that it points to the subterfuges implicit in the idealization of women in Pre-Raphaelite art. What attitudes toward art and gender roles do you believe are latent in the poem?
How would you describe the poem's final tone? Mocking? Regretful? Alienated?
D. G. Rossetti, “The Blessed Damozel”
What is the poem's narrative plot? Its theme?
To what extent would this theme have been common during the Victorian period (or any period)?
How is the mode of treatment unusual?
What are some features of the descriptions of the damozel and of heaven? What is portrayed as the focus of her emotions?
Would the ascription of human desires to heaven have seemed sacrilegious to the poem's readers? Alternately, what view of love does the poem convey?
What are some characteristics of the poem's stanza form and meter? How do these contribute to its effect?
What are some features of its diction--for example, the use of words such as “citherns” and “citoles”? What is added by the biblical and paradisical imagery?
What is the poem's topography? To what extent is this based on The Divine Comedy? What are implications of the image, “She saw time shake like a pulse,” or the sight of earth like a tiny midge?
What is added by the use of parentheses? How do the statements of the lover within parentheses affect our view of the likely outcome of the lovers' wishes?
What is added by the description of the other lovers joined in heaven? What is different about the damozel? Why may the phrase, “we two” be emphasized? Why does she claim that she herself (rather than he) will speak to Mary?
Does the poem exhibit a progression or intensification of tone?
At what point do we begin to doubt the lovers' reunion? What further details reinforce this doubt?
What happens at the end, and why is this significant? Will he ever be able to see her again? What do you make of the statement, “I heard her tears”?
Does this poem remind you of other nineteenth century poems you have read?
After looking at the painting, which aspects of the painting do you think accord with the poem? Are there any which do not--for example, the color of the damozel's dress? The sensuous, crowded effect?
Which of these differences may have to do with the need to present this scene within a single frame? From the painting, what impressions do you receive of heaven? the beloved? the lover?
(study questions by Florence Boos)