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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 says in Section 46, “This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look’d at” what?

2. The poet says in Section 31, “In vain the buzzard houses herself with” what?

3. The narrator claims in Section 73, “Not a youngster is taken for” what, “but I go up too, and am tried and sentenced”?

4. Who does the author say “embody themselves in me and I am embodied in them” at the end of Section 37?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What sense and expression is discussed in the opening of Section 25?

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

4. Which of the five senses is introduced in Section 27? What animal is cited in this section?

5. With what characters does the narrator relate in Section 37?

6. What war is described in Sections 35 and 36? How does the poet describe the aftermath of the battle?

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

8. How does Whitman address the vastness of the world in Section 33?

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

10. How are time and eternity defined in Section 44 of the poem?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Describe, analyze, and discuss the sense of “self” and the omniscient “I” presented in “Song of Myself.” How did Whitman’s perception of self in this poem relate to common public perception of the self at this time historically and culturally? How does Whitman’s “self” compare with the Holy Trinity, for example?

Essay Topic 3

Define “assonance” and “alliteration” and give examples of each in the poem. Why does the poet choose to employ these techniques? What effect to the commonality of the sounds have on the reader?

(see the answer keys)

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