Walt Whitman is considered to be one of America's greatest Romantic poets.
Carefully read the following poem "Song of Myself 52" by Walt Whitman.
PICK TWO of the discussion questions that follow, label them, and answer each in detail
using quotes to prove your points.
3. Go back and find a classmate that answered a different question and respond to ONE of
his/her answers.
1.
2.
Questions:
A. What, in your opinion, is the most important-or most interesting, or most puzzlingline in Whitman's poem?
B. How does Whitman show his connection to the natural world in this poem? For
example, what qualities does he say he shares with the spotted hawk?
C. What might Whitman mean by line 10: "If you want me again look for me under
your boot-soles"?
D. The first line of "Song of Myself" is "I celebrate myself, and sing myself"; the last
line is "I stop somewhere waiting for you." What do you think the last words of poem
Number 52 reveal about Whitman's purpose in writing "Song of Myself."
E. Suppose you had to select a line or word from Whitman's works to characterize him.
Which line(s) or word(s) from these excerpts from "Song of Myself" would you select,
and why?
F. What do you think Whitman means when he describes his own poetry as his "barbaric
yawp"?
G. Some readers of this poem have further taken the meaning of "barbaric yawp" to
refer to the way Europeans might have viewed the "American experiment" of
democracy. What do you think?
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