Song of Myself Test | Final Test - Hard

This set of Lesson Plans consists of approximately 130 pages of tests, essay questions, lessons, and other teaching materials.
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Song of Myself Test | Final Test - Hard

This set of Lesson Plans consists of approximately 130 pages of tests, essay questions, lessons, and other teaching materials.
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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 poet describes outbidding what “old cautious” characters in Section 41?

2. The poet says in Section 46, “No friend of mine takes his ease” where?

3. Who “shoulder their carbines and keep watch,” according to the poet in Section 37?

4. “Behavior” is described as “lawless” as what in Section 39?

5. The narrator states in Section 30 that logic and what “never convince”?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the central message in Section 29 of the poem?

2. What events take place in the battle described in Section 34 of the poem?

3. How are the Native Americans depicted in Section 39?

4. How are “youth” and “age” described in Section 45?

5. What reaction does the poet have to his circumstances in the opening of Section 38?

6. Why and how does Whitman turn to the sense of sound in Section 26?

7. What does the poet tell the world’s “priests” in Section 43?

8. How does Whitman address the faults of mankind in Section 32?

9. What have the “sentries” done, according to the narrator in Section 28?

10. How is the motif of the journey described in Section 46 of the poem?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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