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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. The narrator describes “Houses and rooms” full of what in the beginning of Section 2?

2. In the opening of Section 20, the narrator says, “Who goes there? Hankering, gross, mystical” and what?

3. Of what does the narrator say in Section 23, “it alone rounds and completes all, that mystic baffling wonder alone completes all”?

4. What is being carried in loads on the “slow-drawn wagon” in Section 9?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

6. What foreshadowing is exhibited in Section 1 of the poem? How is the universal “I” set up in this section?

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

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

9. For whom does Whitman describe playing victory marches in Section 18?

10. 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”?

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

Describe and discuss the humanist, realist, and transcendentalist movements in literary history and Walt Whitman’s relationship to each of these movements. How can elements of these literary styles be seen in “Song of Myself”?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the sexual and sensual qualities of the poem “Song of Myself.” Where was the poem and the collection Leaves of Grass banned for its explicit depiction of human sexuality? When were these bans lifted? How did Whitman respond to his work being banned?

(see the answer keys)

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