Reading Questions

One’s Self I Sing (p. 3)

1. Whitman opens his collection Leaves of Grass with this poem. Compare it to the opening of the Aeneid (Arma virumque cano: Of arms and the man I sing.) What does Whitman borrow from Virgil? What does Whitman change? How does he use these opening gestures towards the great Roman poet to launch what aims to be the great American epic?

Song of Myself (pp. 26-78)

This long poem is the center piece of Leaves of Grass. It formed more than half of the first edition of LG published in 1855, where it appeared untitled and not broken into sections. In 1856, Whitman called it “Poem of Walt Whitman.” It received its current name in the edition of 1881. The following RQs are keyed to section numbers.

Section 1. . Compare Whitman’s voice to Virgil’s. What differences do you see? What does he claim as the subject of his song? Who is the “you”?

Section 2. What doe WW mean when he says, “You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectre of books”?

Section 3. What is WW’s attitude towards his body?

Section 4. In this section, what is the relation of the “I” to the world around him?

Section 5. This section stages an encounter between Whitman’s body and Whitman’s soul. How does he imagine that encounter? What knowledge results from it?

Section 6. This section gives an extended gloss or explanation of the title of the collection, “leaves of grass.” What are some of the things that WW means by this phrase? What is a “uniform hieroglyph”?

Section 8. What are some of the sounds that WW collects for his poetry? Why these sounds? How do they contribute to his national epic? What makes them different from the sound effects of, say, Virgil’s Aeneid? Choose one sound that you like best. Why? What sounds from the twenty-first century would you sample for the list?

Section 10. What is the America of this section? Geographically? In terms of people? Who is speaking?

Section 12. How does the poet represent work? In what sense is the poet “working”? Compare to Virgil’s notions of work.

Section 13. How does Whitman depict “the negro”? Are there words or phrases that make you uncomfortable here? If so, why?

Section 14. Who is the “Me” in the last stanza (verse paragraph) of this section? Why do you think the word is capitalized?

Section 15. This section is primarily a catalogue or list of different laborers. What larger categories or types of labor are depicted here? Why do you think the section ends with sleep? How does the poet “weave the song of myself” from this listing of labors?

Section 16. Who is speaking? How does this section flow from the former one? How does the poet define “the Nation” (line 333)?

Section 21. What do you think Whitman means when he claims to be “the poet of the Body” and “the poet of the Soul”? Why do you think each of these claims might be a potentially radical one?

Section 24. How does the poet identify himself (opening)? What is the poet’s attitude towards religion in this section? Towards sex? Towards religion and sex? Who is the “you” in lines 528-44?

Section 26. Why does the poet need to listen, and what is he listening to? Do you think he is a good listener? Why or why not?

Section 42. What do you think Whitman means when he says, "This printed and bound book -- but the printer and the printing boy?" (l. 1088, p. 67)

Section 47. Why would Whitman want his students to be “wicked”?

Section 51. Why doesn’t the poet mind if he contradicts himself?

Section 52. What do you think the poet means when he describes his poetry as a “barbaric yawp”? What is the last word of the poem? Why do you think Whitman would want to end here?

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (pp. 277-83)

1) What is the "trinity" named in the second stanza of Section 1? Trace its reappearance and redefinitions throughout the poem.

2) Compare the tone of Section 1 and the tone of Section 2. How would you describe the poet's mood in each section?

3) As the poem unfolds, consider the following questions (for reading and discussion):

a) What is the relation between the poet's private or individual grief for Lincoln and the grief of the nation? In each section, which perspective dominates, the individual or the collective?

b) Do you see similarities and differences between this poem and Lincoln ’s Gettysburg Address?

O Captain! My Captain! (p. 284)

1. What is the central metaphor of the poem? To what is Lincoln’s life being compared?

2. This was the most popular poem by Whitman during the poet’s lifetime. He was often called to declaim it in public. How is it different from “Song of Myself”? Why do you think it was so popular?