CAMBRIDGE POETRY ESSAY WRITING PROMPT- ANCHOR PAPERS
A LEVEL ENGLISH LITERATURE
DIRECTIONS:
Evaluate your own paper in comparison to the following papers and their corresponding Cambridge
bands.
EXAMPLES FROM ROSSETTI POETRY SET TEXT
PROMPT A:
In what ways and with what effects does Rossetti present conflict in her religious poems? You should refer to ​
three
poems in your answer.
Band 4 Example
Christina Rossetti presents religious conflict in “A Better Resurrection”, “Cobwebs”, and “Up-Hill” by depicting
the love of man or the love of god.
In “A Better Resurrection”, she struggles internally using plead throughout the context, “O Jesus, quicken me”
(8), “O Jesus, rise me” (16), “O Jesus, drink of me” (24). These lines are at the end of each 3 stanzas creating a concluded
permanence. The conflict presented is within her; feeling of, “a falling leaf” (7) and her life “is void and brief” (11). The
narrator didn’t find her reason for living nor was she loved by any. Therefore, god was her solution to fulfill her
loneliness.
In “Cobwebs”, Christina struggles internally using nature throughout the context, “It is a land with neither night
nor day” (1), “No future hope no fear for evermore” (14). The description of nature being an overall idiom i s the way she
describes the afterlife. The conflict presented is within her ideas that there is no fulfillment, there is no god that will love
and give you a “guardened home” 13). The narrator is creating a fearful message that dying isn’t all that beautiful, and
living should be an importance. Therefore, man was her solution all though it wasn’t directly in the text. Instead,
Christina expresses god isn’t the answer by making the readers feel heaven is empty.
In “Up-Hill” Christina questions the afterlife creating internal conflict, “But is there for the night a resting-place?”
(5), “Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?” (13). Here, she has excitement for death and is represented as someone
constantly thinking of a place so much you are looking forward to, you end up going crazy. From the constant
questioning, Rossetti creates an imaginative world that drives her determination to read the end. The conflict presented
is within her imagination that even though living, she urges for death to come sooner and is occupied by the thought of it.
Therefore, god was her solution and the love for him in death is far more rewarding that the love of man in living.
In these three poems, I believe Christina Rossetti is confused about love and evidently disagree with her thought
process. Two out of the three poems were the choice of god and the journey of death, but though she presents it as an
exciting experience, the narrator is waiting for the love of man to help drive her away of the idea of death. This is
presented in all poems: “I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief” (A Better Resurrection line 5). Here, she was waiting for
her loneliness to disappear with someone to stop her, but when no one was there, she grew depressed and had no choice
but to follow the path of god. “All the loveless land” (Cobwebs, line 11). Here, she made the solution that there is no love
in heaven, and with time it will come to her in the living. The questions she asks herself in “Up-Hill” shows she is not
completely ready for the choice of death, but in the end “Yea, beds for all who come” show the lost hope that no one is
going to stop her. Her thought process is too in depth and time taking, it drove the narrator crazy. So I believe if her
thought process was more focused on living and the love of man, religion wouldn’t be such a burden to pressure her
relationship with god.
Comments​
:
In this essay, the student outlines the central conflict succinctly in the opening thesis (“the love of man or the love of god”)
and follows through by analyzing each poem according to that framework, then comparing all three in the final paragraph.
The student uses two or more pieces of relevant evidence in each paragraph to support the argument that each poem is
either an argument for “love of god” or “love of man”. The student hints at analysis of literary features (repetition in “A
Better Resurrection”, nature imagery in “Cobwebs”, and rhetorical questions in “Up-Hill”), but does not name them or
explicitly analyze their effects, using the quotations mostly as content for the central argument. There is some misuse of
literary vocabulary; “context” is used rather dubiously, as is “idiom”. Her assertion that the speaker in “Up-Hill” ends up
“going crazy” is a bit of a stretch, and not supported in the text. The last paragraph, ostensibly an attempt to present
alternate interpretations of the poems, reads more like the student’s personal disagreement with Rossetti’s beliefs and life
choices, instead of demonstrating that the poems themselves are open to varying interpretations.
Band 3 Example
Rossetti presents the unsettling conflict of how one views and begins to doubt their religion in The Lowest Place,
Up-Hill, and Good Friday through the use of repetition, imagery, and allusions.
To begin, Rossetti uses repetition in the ​
Lowest Place​
to convey the inner conflict the author feels about heaven
and God. Through the repetition of “Give me the Lowest Place” (1) throughout the poem, it is seen that she is pleading to
God to see her as insignificant. Here, the author, using first person, is seen as thinking of herself as not worthy of God’s
love and honor, so she ask him that when she arrives in Heaven to give him the Lowest Place in Heaven. She does farther
on to say that even the lowest place is “too high” (6), revealing her views on herself as a person. Here, she makes it clear
that she believes that she is not worth God’s grace.
Also, Rossetti goes further on to question her faith through the use of imagery in Up-Hill. Rossetti uses a
call-and-response method in the poem to establish the author as the caller and God as the one responding.
Also, Rossetti goes further on to question the journey to Heaven through the use of a poetic technique such as
call-and-response in order to secure certainty of how Heaven is like. This is seen as she writes “Will the day’s journey
take the whole day?/From morn to night, my friend” (line 3-4). Here, the author is establishing that the journey will be
long, more being birth and night being death. From beginning to end, the author realizes that even though life is ever
changing throughout the journey, there’s a reward in the end for all the pain and suffering that one had to go through in
life. In the end of the poems the final question asked is “Will there be best for me and all who seek?” with the responder
answering, “Yea, beds for all who come” (line 16). Here, it is seen that the author’s question all along is that “Is everyone
able to find eternal peace regardless of what they did during life?” God responded, saying that Peace is given to all who
come to Heaven and seek rest after their long journey.
Lastly, Rossetti uses allusion and imagery throughout A Good Friday to convey her conflict with her wavering
faith in God. Rossetti constantly references the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at the beginning of the poem, “That I can stand,
O Christ, beneath Thy Cross,/To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,” (line 2-3). Here, the author is questioning
her inability to weep for the loss of God, seeing “those women” (line 5), being the three Marys “Who with exceeding grief
lamented Thee” (line 6). She doubts her love for God, reffering to her inability to sho emotion for his death compared to
those around her. She goes further on as compare her faith in God to that of Moses in the Book of Exodus. Like the
shaking faith Moses had with God after he liberated the Jewish people from Egypt, Rossetti compares herself to her
tiresome devotion to God and not seeing proof that he exsist. “Greater that Moses, turn and look once more/And smite a
rock” (lines 15-16). Here, the author is asking for a sign, anything, to reassure her faith in Jesus.
Taking into account the varying view of others, someone could have come to the conclusion that in Up-Hill, the
speaker could have been assured in her faith in Heaven as ask in the
Comments​
:
In this essay, the student argues that Rossetti uses three poems to show the journey a person takes who has begun to doubt
their faith. Although unfinished, with some structural and organizational issues, the student clearly identifies a key literary
method in each poem, explains the effects of each, and connects the methods back to Rossetti’s main concern of
demonstrating conflict in religion. The student only just makes the very first steps toward acknowledging alternate
interpretations of “Up-Hill” in the last sentences, but the quality of the rest of the work justifies its placement in Band 3.
PROMPT B:
Paying close attention to the effects of the writing, discuss the following poem, showing what it contributes to your
understanding of Rossetti’s poetic methods and concerns. [“Cousin Kate”]
Band 5 Example
In the poem Cousin Kate by Christina Rossetti, love is lost. In the beginning she says “why did a great lord find
me out” (line 5). Here she is wondering why he likes her since she isn’t that pretty. This shows that from the beginning,
she knew she didn’t really belong with him. Then, later on in the poem, she says “He saw you at your father’s gate, chose
you, and cast me by” (lines 19-20). Here she is saying that he left her for her cousin who is prettier than her. Meaning that
he didn’t love her enough. Rossetti uses imagery in this case to show that not all love is pure. These methods and
concerns can be seen in other Rossetti poems as well. One of them being Maud Clare. In Maude Clare, the story is similar
except he leaves her for a less attractive women. While Sir Thomas is marrying his bride, his ex, Maude Clare, come. She
showers them with gifts that Sir Thomas gave her when they were together. First we see imagery to describe the gifts she
is giving them. For example, “golden chain”, “faded leaves”, “budding lilies”. At the end she gives his bride a gift. She says
“take my share of a fickle heart” (line 37). Here Clare is giving his bride the part of his heart she thought belonged to her.
Meaning that she thought he loved her a lot but the love was not pure and it went to another person. We can sort of also
see these same methods and concerns in The Convent Threshold. In this poem, the main character sins (has sex) with her
lover. She then wants her lover to do the same. However, he doesn’t do it in time. She uses imagery to describe how she
feels about the sin and where she wants to go. “There’s blood between us” (line 1), “I choose the stairs that mount above”
(line 4). These show that she feels bad and wants to go to heaven. Towards the end of the poem she says that “Knowledge
is strong” (line 106) and “Give me light” (line 92). Here she is dreaming, in the dream she finds out that knowledge is
better than love. So her love wasn’t pure to her lover because she left him for heaven and knowledge. Overall, Cousin
Kate shows that love is not always pure through imagery. This can also be seen in Maude Clare and The Convent
Threshold.
Comments​
:
This essay doesn’t seem to demonstrate a successful response to either prompt option. There is not enough attention to the
provided text (“Cousin Kate”) for option B for it to qualify as a real close reading, with very little analysis of the literary
methods in that poem. (“Imagery” is mentioned, but the quotations provided don’t support that claim.) If, taking the cue
from the comparison of three poems, we try to read it as a response to option A instead, it doesn’t respond at all to the
prompt of “conflict in her religious poems.” Although it has a moment or two of insight, this fails to successfully address the
prompt and cannot be placed higher than Band 5.
Band 4 Example
In the poem “Cousin Kate” by Christina Rossetti, there are a variety of methods and concerns used. While used in
this poem, they can be seen across a large amount of her work. The main methods and concern included in “Cousin Kate”
are dramatic situation (narrative).
The method of having a dramatic situation is included in this poem. In the first stanza of the poem, the main
character is questioning events from her past and asks “why did a great lord find me out” (ln. 5). Here, it is showing that
the woman doesn’t quite understand why she was chosen by the man. This shows that the poem is a narrative because
she is starting out by mentioning the past of a character. The woman is most likely going to tell of why she came to the
point of asking. Later on in the poem, the speaker says that the neighbors “call [her] an outcast thing” (ln. 28). Here, it
shows that the speaker no longer was accepted by society due to her action. This shows that the poem includes dramatic
situation because it is playing out the lives, choices, and consequences of two cousins.
This idea of dramatic situation is seen in a number of her poems, one being “Maude Clare”. In this poem, Rossetti
uses this idea as a way of more effectively telling the story. In the beginning of the poem, it says “Maude Clare was like a
queen” (ln. 4). Here, it is describing a character in such a way that the reader knows who she is. This shows that the poem
is a narrative because it is easier for the reader to get to know the people involved. It results in the reader becoming
involved in the lives of those they are reading about. Later in the poem, when Maude Clare is talking to another woman,
she tells her “I wash my hands thereof” (ln. 40). Here, it shows that she is not an entirely spiteful person. This shows that
this is written in the style of a narrative because the poem progresses in the manner of a story. It is telling of the actions
that the main character chooses to make. Overall, “Maude Clare” shares the method of a dramatic situation because it is
telling of the way she acted when her lover married another person.
In regards to the method of dramatic situation found in “Cousin Kate”, there are some people that hold the idea
that it isn’t a poem about a forgotten woman, but is really a poem about the idea of redemption and forgiveness. This
opinion is strongly based in the last two stanzas of the poem. One line that is often used to add value to this idea is “your
love was writ in sand” (34). Here, it is saying that the cousin’s love was not one based on solid ground. This shows that
the poem could have a meaning of redemption because the line is an allusion to the Bible. It means that the cousin did not
base her love on things like trust but on things of the world. The idea of a religious meaning is also seen in the fact that
the speaker talks about her “fair-haired son” (ln. 45). Here, it becomes clear that due to her actions, the speaker now has
a child. This line supports the idea that the poem is about forgiveness. The reason it can be used to show this is because
even though she has made some poor decisions, the narrator has something that can never be taken from her. Overall,
the opinion that “Cousin Kate” is a poem about redemption and forgiveness is supported. It tells of how the narrator
bases her love in something greater than a man and is forgiven for her mistakes by getting a child. This opinion is a
logical one to have because many of Rossetti’s poems have religious themes.
Overall, “Cousin Kate” has the method of a dramatic situation being used to further tell what Rossetti was getting
at. The method is seen in a variety of other poems. While many say that this poem is about an unloved, forgotten woman,
the idea that it’s about forgiveness is also very likely.
Comments​
:
This essay demonstrates clear knowledge of the text, but lacks in understanding of the writer’s choices. Yes, we can tell that
the poem is a narrative, but the real question is WHY did Rossetti choose to convey her message of sin and possible
redemption using this narrative form? What advantages does “telling a story” give her that another poetic form does not?
The comparison to “Maude Clare” is well-supported, but again misses the mark. Proving that both are narratives is of little
value unless one can explain why the narrative form was used. The student finally reaches questions of theme or concern in
the second-to-last paragraph, but leaves a few of the important points not fully explained (What evidence is there that the
child is meant to be a symbol of forgiveness? How might the child be the speaker’s redemption?)
PAPER 5 EXAMPLES FROM OTHER TEXTS
From A-Level Literature Exam Paper 5 in June 2015 - Emily Dickinson
Paying close attention to language and tone, discuss the following poem, relating it to Dickinson’s methods and
concerns in other poems in your selection.
I dreaded that first Robin, so,
But He is mastered, now,
I’m some accustomed to Him grown,
He hurts a little, though —
I could not bear the Bees should come,
I wished they’d stay away
In those dim countries where they go,
What word had they, for me?
I thought if I could only live
Till that first Shout got by —
Not all Pianos in the Woods
Had power to mangle me —
They’re here, though; not a creature failed —
No blossom stayed away
In gentle deference to me —
The Queen of Calvary —
I dared not meet the Daffodils —
For fear their Yellow Gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own —
Each one salutes me, as he goes,
And I, my childish Plumes,
Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment
Of their unthinking Drums —
I wished the Grass would hurry —
So — when ’twas time to see —
He’d be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch — to look at me —
Emily Dickinson
Band 4 Example
It is known that Emily Dickinson has written many poems in her lifetime. Many of the poems were centered
around some theme of love, nature, or death--and this one, which can be referred to as “I dreaded that first Robin, so,” is
no different.
The poem is nature related, with a loose ABCB rhyme scheme, which is typical for Dickinson. The language used
by Dickinson is arranged in a way so that the poem has a tone of contentment and is melancholy. Emily uses typical
objects like a Robin, Daffodils, and Bees so to make the poem familiar to a reader.
Considering that Dickinson spent the majority of her time in her room, observing nature, it is possible that she is
the “Queen of Calvary” watching as what is outside her window matures and grows.
Dickinson writes this poem as she has many other including her typical use of four line stanzas, many placed
hyphens, and specific capitalization of particular words. The components of an Emily Dickinson poem are apparent and
help to get her idea across. Emily’s capitalization of the main “characters” of her poem, emphasis their importance. The
hyphens force a reader to slow down and allow the phrases to be digested and comprehended. The four line stanza helps
to concise ideas into little poetic paragraphs for a reader.
Dickinson’s poems don’t always make sense to a read the first read, however the language makes them
comfortable and provides unique imagery, such as the “Yellow Gown” of a daffodil. The imagery and ideas are also
somewhat childlike further making the reader comfortable. The tone of the poem is not hard or uninviting which is made
so by turning elements of the poem into a proper noun, which Dickinson has been known to do. At the end of the poem
there is the mentioning of some “bereaved acknowledgements” which is a nod to death which Dickinson often wrote
about. Although the 27th line of the poem references to death the tone of it is not scary or depressing to a reader. It’s
peaceful and integrated into the poem well.
Emily Dickinson has an ability to make mundane an taboo topics like nature and death interesting for an
audience. She uses language that is understandable and creates a tone that is comfortable for a reader. She also often
uses certain characteristics throughout her poems like hyphens, a slight rhyme, and capitalizations to let readers know
it’s her, even after death. This poem in particular about watching nature grow is inviting and relatable to a reader.
Cambridge Examiner’s Comments:
Solid Knowledge and Personal Response, attempted Understanding and clear Communication.
Band 3 Example
In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “I dreaded that first Robin, so,” she uses the same sort of language and tone as some
of her other works. Dickinson uses personification, repetition, and anaphora to create an eerie tone, similar to another
one of her poems called “I felt a funeral.”
Foremost, Dickinson uses personification to create an eerie tone in both “I dreaded that first Robin, so” and “I
felt a funeral.” In “I dreaded that first Robin, so,” Dickinson writes, in reference to blossoms, “each one salutes me, as he
goes.” (25). Here, personification is evidence because blossoms are given the human ability to salute the poem’s narrator.
This line created an eerie tone because blossoms, usually considered cheerful, as solemnly bidding the narrator adieu.
Additionally, in “I felt a funeral,” Dickinson writes “and I, and silence, some strange race, wrecked solitary, here”
(unknown line number due to memorization). Here, personification is used because the narrator and silence are given
the human characteristic of a race. This line also creates an eerie tone because the race is described as being alone and
destroyed. Furthermore, Dickinson’s use of personification in both these poems create a consistently eerie tone.
In addition to personification, Dickinson uses anaphora to create an eerie tone in both poems that were
previously named. In “I dreaded that first Robin, so,” Emily Dickinson says “I thought if I could only live” (5) and “I dared
not meet the daffodils” (10). In these lines, anaphora is being used because the stanzas both start with “I”, which makes it
evident that the narrator is personally experiencing what the audience is reading. This first person point of view of
melancholy occurences establishes an eerie tone in the poem because the reader can relate to the narrator. Likewise, in “I
felt a funeral,” Emily Dickinson uses anaphora to establish an eerie tone by starting more than one line with “and.” Using
the word “and” to start off a few different lines makes the poem seem to have a quicker pace. Since the poem already has
dreary words, the anaphora of the word “and” further develops the eerie tone in the play. Therefore, in both named
poems, Dickinson’s use of anaphora develops an eerie tone.
Finally, Dickinson repeats same word, drum, in both “I dreaded that first Robin, so,” and “I felt a funeral.” In “I
dreaded that first Robin, so,” Dickinson mentions “unthinking drums” (28). here, the word drum is used to create an eerie
tone, as being classified as unthinking indicates that the drums are unpredictable. Similarly, in “I felt a funeral,” Dickinson
writes a “service, like a drum, kept beating, beating till I thought my mind was going numb” (unknown line numbers
because they are pulled from memory). Here, Dickinson’s use of the word drum shows that the event described in the
poem is uncomfortable and difficult to withstand. This shows that the poem has an eerie tone. In conclusion, both poems’
eerie tones are developed with Dickinson’s repetition of the word, drum.
Therefore, in “I dreaded that first Robin, so,” Dickinson uses personification, anaphora, and repetition to create
an eerie tone. These language techniques are also used to create the same tone in some of her other poems, like “I felt a
funeral.” This shows that Dickinson’s poems are all connected and similarly crafted.
Cambridge Examiner’s Comments:
Some competence in selecting Understanding and Knowledge with well-developed Personal Response and clear
Communication.