Walt Whitman: from "Song of Myself" - Read

Question 1

poetic devices

Answer 1

• repetition, personification, metaphor, inverted syntax, sound devices
• alliteration (repetition of first consonant sounds in a string of words)
• onomatopoeia (a word that imitates a sound, or tat sounds like its definition)

Question 2

in speaking about the grass in Lines 19-22 from “Song of Myself,” Whitman uses the poetic device of
Sec.6 Lines 15, 19-22:
“A child said What is the grass?…”
“Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer desingedly dropt, Breaing the owern’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark and say Whose?”

Answer 2

extended metaphor

Question 3

What free verse poetic device does Whitman use in these underlined words from “Song of Myself”?
Sec.6 Lines 31-34:
“It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, It may be you are form old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps”

Answer 3

repetition

Question 4

Line 5 of Whitman’s poem, “Song of Myself,” is a good example of
Sec 1 Line 5: “I loafe and lean at my ease

Answer 4

alliteration

Question 5

In line 129 sec. 52 of his poem “Song of Myself,” Whitman uses the sound device of Line 129: “Failing to fetch me at first”

Answer 5

alliteration

Question 6

the underlined word in Line 111 of Whitman’s “Song of Myself” is an example of what sound device?
sec 33 line 111: “The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air”

Answer 6

onomatopoeia