Whitman Study Questions

Romanticism

1. How does the poem embody the emotional characteristic of Romanticism?

2. How does the poem focus on the individualistic, with regard to Romanticism?

3. How does the poem embody the Revolutionary characteristic of Romanticism?

4. How does the poem focus on the solitary or isolated, in terms of Romanticism?

5. In what ways does the poem focus on Nature, with regard to Romanticism?

6. How is the poem subjective in its focus?

7. In what ways might the poem be fantastic, exotic, or (perhaps) supernatural or even mythic?

8. In what ways might the poem be idealistic in tone or theme?

From Reuben’s PAL site:

1. Notice that Whitman's “Song of Myself” begins with “I” and ends with “you.” To what extent can the poem be understood as a transaction from an “I” (eye?) to a “you”? Consider too the first activity of the “I” in this regard: he loafs and observes a spear (why a single spear?) of summer grass. In what sense is this observation typical of the movement leading from “I” to “you”?

2. Whitman has often been accused of being egotistical. Discuss his use of “I” and its relation to the country at large. Why does he appear egotistic? What is his purpose?

3. What is Whitman's view of his physical self? Why does he stress it so much?

4. Discuss Whitman's poetry as a culmination point in the development of American identity. How does Whitman contribute to the ongoing evolution of self-reliance? of human freedom? of concepts of democracy?

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Questions for individual sections or groups of sections:

Sections 1-7:

1. How might we best describe the persona of the speaker in this poem? What things seem important to him, what does he enjoy? What characteristics of Romanticism does he seem to embody?

2. What is the tone of the first two stanzas?  What specific diction points toward this attitude? Which characteristics of the period do these opening stanzas best seem to embody?

3. What does the speaker suggest about the nature of established institutions? What characteristic does this seem to best illustrate?

4. What does the speaker ask of readers? In what ways might this embody a specific characteristic of the period?

5. What imagery does the speaker use to focus on Nature? What signs signify Nature in the opening stanzas? How does the speaker of the poem feel about nature?  What does he have to say about nature and the natural world?  What does it offer us?

6. How does the speaker see himself in relation to the people around him?  Is he completely a part of the crowd? Completely separate from it? Does this seem to suggest a focus on the individual? Does this seem to suggest a kind of subjectivity? How does this fit within the focus of Romanticism?

Sections 16-17

7. What is the attitude of the speaker toward the people in the country? How might this suggest a developing sense of what it means to be American? What Romantic characteristics are in these stanzas? To what end are they working?

Sections 21-24:

8. How does the poet describe himself, in these sections?  What are his tasks, as poet?
What is the poet’s attitude towards time? How do these descriptions embody certain Romantic traits?

9. What might the poet mean when he says “Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son”?  How does this description fit with other things the poet has said?

10. What are the poet’s attitudes towards sex? towards the body and physicality, generally? How is this individualistic? How is it subjective? How is it idealistic? How it revolutionary?

Sections 46-52:

11. What is the “perpetual journey” the poet refers to?  Why does he say that people must travel their own road? How might this be a revision of earlier authors/thinkers?

12. Do contradictions appear to matter to the poet?  Why or why not? In what ways is this a reference to Emerson?

13. Why might the poet call his voice a “barbaric yawp”?

14. What do you make of the speaker’s relationship to Nature at the end of the poem, in section 52? What does the hawk signify or suggest about Nature? What about the complaining of “gab” and “loitering”? Does this suggest that themes of work and warnings against sloth are somehow part of the Natural world? Does this ultimately reinforce Crevecoeur or Franklin?

15. What does this last section suggest about the theme or concept of death? How does this suggest a “oneness” with Nature? Why does the poem end with the word “you”?