View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is one of the things which keeps Whitman up late at night, though he needs no assurances?
(a) Lost lovers.
(b) Creative thoughts.
(c) Pain.
(d) Death.

2. When Whitman sits and looks out into the world, he sees all the __________ and the agony without end.
(a) Meanness.
(b) Justice.
(c) Anger.
(d) Peace.

3. At what time of the day is the soul allowed to be most free, according to Whitman in his own findings?
(a) Dusk.
(b) Dawn.
(c) Noon.
(d) Midnight.

4. Who asks Whitman to sing a song that no poet has yet to have chanted?
(a) God.
(b) Muse.
(c) The grass.
(d) A flower.

5. What does Whitman say was the year of struggle, the year when no dainty rhymes or sentimental loves verses were written?
(a) 1821.
(b) 1861.
(c) 1841.
(d) 1851.

Short Answer Questions

1. Whitman writes that whatever satisfies ________ is true, according to one of his poems.

2. What was Whitman's voice like when he sang late in the night, according to his writing?

3. Who is sultry with perfumes, with ample and flowing garments, florid with blood, hot with passion?

4. Whitman says that not a disembodied _________ can the weapons of tyrants let loose, but it stalks invisibly.

5. _________ sprouts push through the snow, helping to reveal the coming of Spring and of the month of March.

Short Essay Questions

1. To what are the tides of the ocean compared to in life, according to the poems of Whitman?

2. Why is it sad when one of the birds in a couple dies and the other one does not know it?

3. To whom does Whitman compare the country of old Ireland, in his poem to this land?

4. What does Whitman point out happens no matter how many advancements science has made?

5. To whom does Whitman appear to give his spirit to, though this person is never mentioned by name in a poem?

6. What are some of the signs of spring that Whitman lists in the poem, "Warble for Lilac-Time"?

7. What does Whitman ask the soul to do in the poems about addressing the idea of mortality?

8. How is the plowman used in reference and as a metaphor for death in Whitman's poem?

9. Who are the phantoms to which Whitman refers in his poems about love being lost?

10. How is the meteor used as a metaphor in the poem called, "Year of Meteors," which Whitman has written?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 592 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample