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| Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. The “lunatic” described in Section 15 “will never sleep any more as he did in the cot” where?
2. Who does the “red girl” marry in Section 10?
3. The narrator states in Section 3, “I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the” what?
4. What character is “sold at the auction-stand” in Section 15?
5. The narrator says in Section 20, “Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel'd with doctors and calculated close, I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own” what?
Short Essay Questions
1. How have critics and scholars interpreted the following sexually implicit lines in Section 5: “How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me”?
2. Over what elements does the poet describe Earth reigning in Section 21?
3. How does Section 13 begin? What is the focus of this section of the poem?
4. What is the poet’s implication with the following lines from Section 4: “There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now”?
5. What motif reappears in Section 17? Why does the poet use this motif here?
6. How does the poet define “I” and “you” in response to his own questions in Section 20?
7. What imagery is the focus of Section 11 of the poem?
8. What does Whitman conclude of the quality of “presence” in Section 3?
9. With whom does the poet relate in the beginning of Section 16?
10. How does the poet relate with the “wild gander” in Section 14?
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
Discuss the poet’s references to the Texas War of Independence. What were Whitman’s political views regarding the war? How many soldiers died in the battles? How does Whitman describe the Battle of the Alamo in this section of the poem? What central battle is his focus?
Essay Topic 3
Discuss Walt Whitman’s comparisons of those things that appear minute and/or mundane with those that appear vast and overshadowing. What is the poet’s point in these illustrations in Section 31? What conclusions does the poet reach?
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This section contains 992 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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