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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The narrator combines the word “respiration” with what word in Section 2?
(a) “Inspiration.”
(b) “Resignation.”
(c) “Retaliation.”
(d) “Desperation.”

2. The narrator describes “Houses and rooms” full of what in the beginning of Section 2?
(a) Perfumes.
(b) Ornate carvings.
(c) Paintings.
(d) Rich wood.

3. Who does the narrator ask in Section 13, “What is it that you express in your eyes?”
(a) The goats.
(b) The horses.
(c) The oxen.
(d) The cows.

4. The poet claims in Section 21 that “it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,” and that “there is nothing greater than” what?
(a) “The cousin of the animals.”
(b) “The father of children.”
(c) “The owner of the animals.”
(d) “The mother of men.”

5. What does the narrator say that seeing “at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books” in Section 24?
(a) “A sunflower.”
(b) “A puppy.”
(c) “A pansy.”
(d) “A morning-glory.”

Short Answer Questions

1. The narrator claims in Section 7, “I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my” what?

2. What “impassive” objects “receive and return so many echoes,” according to the narrator in Section 8?

3. What word used in the opening of Section 15 refers to the lowest female voice or voice part, intermediate between soprano and tenor?

4. What is described in Section 8 as sprawled “on the bloody floor of the bedroom”?

5. What character is “sold at the auction-stand” in Section 15?

Short Essay Questions

1. What Christian allusion can be seen in the opening of Section 21?

2. How is “the lunatic” described in Section 15 of the poem?

3. What new journey does the poet embark upon beginning in Section 8 of the poem?

4. What symbolism and metaphor are illustrated in Section 9 of the poem?

5. What does Walt Whitman praise and celebrate in Section 23 of the poem?

6. What is the poet’s implication with the following lines from Section 4: “There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now”?

7. How have critics and scholars interpreted the following sexually implicit lines in Section 5: “How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me”?

8. What motif reappears in Section 17? Why does the poet use this motif here?

9. How does the poet define “I” and “you” in response to his own questions in Section 20?

10. What is Whitman’s conclusion regarding “failure” in Section 18?

(see the answer keys)

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