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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the butcher-boy put off, according to the narrator in Section 12?

2. To what does the narrator say “I resign myself to you also” in the beginning of Section 21?

3. The narrator claims in Section 5, “I know that the hand of God is the promise of” what?

4. How does the poet describe the summer night in Section 21?

5. What word does the poet describe as “a word of the modern” in Section 23?

Short Essay Questions

1. After calling out to the Earth in Section 21, what does Whitman address in Section 22?

2. What is signified by these lines from Section 1: “I loafe and invite my soul, / I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass”?

3. How does the poet’s delineation of “self” evolve in Section 5 of the poem?

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

5. How is “the negro” described in Section 13 of the poem?

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

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

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

9. Whom does the poet invite to eat the meal in Section 19?

10. How does Section 13 begin? What is the focus of this section of the poem?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the elements of “realism” in lines such as the following from Section 15: “The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case, (He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bedroom).” How and why do lines such as these stand out amongst popular poetry of the 1850s? What does this line signify metaphorically?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Walt Whitman’s depictions of nature versus modernization, science, and technology. Do you think Whitman perceived science as being akin to spirituality? How did his viewpoints in the poem coincide with traditional thought?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the issues of slavery and race relations in 1855 when the poem was first published. What were Walt Whitman’s political views regarding slavery and the dissention between the North and South at this time? What elements of racial relations have been seen in “Song of Myself”?

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