1820-1865: Short Answer Quiz

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself


  1. “Song of Myself” begins lazily: “I loafe and invite my soul, / I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass” (p. 2210 [full ed.] p. 1011 [shorter ed.]). Discuss the power of leisureliness in this poem. How are the long lines and rhythms contributing to a sense of being at ease? How does patience and restfulness look in comparison with the obvious ambitions of the poem?

  1. “I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy; / By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms” (p. 2227 [full ed.] p. 1028 [shorter ed.]). Describe the democratic project of the poem: what does it include? For whom are the things it accepts catalogued, and why? Whom does the poem seem to be addressing, and to what purpose?

  1. Consider the confident tone of the poem’s voice: “In vain the speeding or shyness, / In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach, / In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder’d bones, / In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes, / In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters lying low” (p. 2232 [full ed.] p. 1033 [shorter ed.]). The shapes, sizes, and dangers in this passage are often taken as the sublime, something to be regarded with awe and terror. How does Whitman treat the sublime in this poem?

  1. Consider this passage about recalcitrant responses to the speaker’s expansive desires: “Down-hearted doubters dull and excluded, / Frivolous, sullen, moping, angry, affected, dishearten’d atheistical, / I know every one of you, I know the sea of torment, doubt, despair and unbelief” (p. 2247 [full ed.] p. 1048 [shorter ed.]). How does this poem deal with readers who resist its attempt to include them?

  1. “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” (p. 2253 [full ed.] p. 1054 [shorter ed.]). In attempting to include every American perspective within it, the poem cannot avoid running into contradictions. Yet the voice seems unconcerned about this inevitable consequence of its indiscriminate inclusion. Decide whether or not this lack of concern is a problem for the poem and what it has to say about democracy, and explain your answer.



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