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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. How does the poet describe the summer night in Section 21?
(a) “Rich with water summer night.”
(b) “Mad naked summer night.”
(c) “Hot sweaty summer night.”
(d) “Pulsing gray summer night.”

2. What color, in addition to green, is considered the “tufted crown intentional” by the narrator in Section 13?
(a) Yellow.
(b) Orange.
(c) Red.
(d) Violet.

3. What sound is the “wild gander” cited as calling out as he passes in Section 14?
(a) “Woohoo.”
(b) “Ya-honk.”
(c) “Hee-onk.”
(d) “Ca-caw.”

4. What adjective does the narrator use in describing the summer morning in Section 5?
(a) “Boiling.”
(b) “Transparent.”
(c)
(d) “Retrograde.”

5. How old does the narrator of the poem claim to be in Section 1?
(a) 44.
(b) 34.
(c) 37.
(d) 29.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does the narrator say the “sharp-hoof’d moose” comes from in Section 14?

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

3. As the narrator watches “the little one” sleeping in Section 8, he silently brushes away what with his hand?

4. The narrator claims to wear what as he pleases “indoors or out” in Section 20?

5. 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?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the poet relate with the “wild gander” in Section 14?

2. What does Whitman conclude of the quality of “presence” in Section 3?

3. 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”?

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

5. 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”?

6. What “characters” does the poet embody in Section 10?

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

8. With whom does the poet relate in the beginning of Section 16?

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

10. What does the “twenty-ninth bather” represent metaphorically in Section 11?

(see the answer keys)

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