Whitman Take-Home Test
Honors American Literature
Mr. Sargent
Name: _______________________
Honor Code: On my honor, I have neither given nor received assistance on this test.
Signed: _____________________________________
Date: ____________
General Directions: This take-home test is meant to be completed in less than forty-five
minutes. You may use your notes and your book (or print-out of the poems), but no other
secondary sources. Do not discuss the content of this test with anyone. For all questions,
make sure that your first sentences answer the question; do not waste phrases. Write your
answers on separate paper. Do not type your answers. Staple your answers to the test.
This take-home test is due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, December 11. A test
handed in later on the same day will lose five points. After that, it will lose ten points for
every day it is late.
Paragraph: Answer three of the following questions, each in a paragraph. Use details
from the poems, where appropriate, to illustrate your points. (10 points each)
1. Discuss the narrator’s attitude toward the astronomer in “When I Heard the Learn’d
Astronomer.”
2. Discuss how the structure and poetics of “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and
Dim” support its meaning.
3. In “Beat! Beat! Drums!” how does Whitman use personification to express his
understanding of war? (Consider what is unique about his use of personification in this
case.)
4. Choose a poem or part of a poem in which Whitman uses the technique of cataloging and
explain the effect it creates in that poem.
Short Essay: Answer the following question in two to three well-developed paragraphs.
Use specific examples from the poem to illustrate your points. Remember to include a
thesis statement and topic sentences! (40 points)
In what ways does Whitman express aspects of transcendental philosophy in “Song of
Myself”?