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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 adjective does the narrator use in describing the summer morning in Section 5?
2. What word used in the opening of Section 15 refers to the lowest female voice or voice part, intermediate between soprano and tenor?
3. How does the poet describe the summer night in Section 21?
4. In the opening of Section 20, the narrator says, “Who goes there? Hankering, gross, mystical” and what?
5. With whom does the narrator describe spending “that day round the chowder-kettle” in Section 10?
Short Essay Questions
1. 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”?
2. How does the poet’s delineation of “self” evolve in Section 5 of the poem?
3. What is the metaphorical meaning in the following lines from Section 7: “Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? / I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.”?
4. What Christian allusion can be seen in the opening of Section 21?
5. After calling out to the Earth in Section 21, what does Whitman address in Section 22?
6. What motif returns to the narrative in Section 6? How is this motif examined here?
7. What motif reappears in Section 17? Why does the poet use this motif here?
8. What does the “twenty-ninth bather” represent metaphorically in Section 11?
9. What is Whitman’s “advice” to the reader in Section 11 of the poem?
10. What foreshadowing is exhibited in Section 1 of the poem? How is the universal “I” set up in this section?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Describe and analyze the theme of “life and death” in Song of Myself.” Why does the poet consider the act of dying to be “lucky”? How is Death equated and compared with Life? What metaphors of death and life does the poet use to illustrate his points?
Essay Topic 2
Define and discuss “metaphor” and “simile” in literature and poetry. Using an excerpt from “Song of Me,” show the different metaphors and similes in the poem. How does the poet use these comparisons as a way to explain? How do the metaphors and similes in the early parts of the poem help to establish the poem’s mood and tone?
Essay Topic 3
Discuss the setting of the country barn and the poet’s depiction of harvest time in Section 9. What is being loaded on the wagon and how what symbolism does this crop imply? How is the crop related to the other symbolic motifs in the poem?
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This section contains 977 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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