38 pages • 1 hour read
Walt WhitmanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Develop each topic below into a brief but structured essay of one to several paragraphs. Be sure to address each part of the overall topic. Cite details from both poems over the course of your response.
1. Consider this idea from Poetry Foundation’s biographical article on Sandburg:
“As Richard Crowder notes in Carl Sandburg, the poet ‘Had been the first poet of modern times actually to use the language of the people as his almost total means of expression... Sandburg had entered into the language of the people; he was not looking at it as a scientific phenomenon or a curiosity. ... He was at home with it.’ Sandburg’s own Whitmanesque comment was, ‘I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass. […] I’ll probably die propped up in bed trying to write a poem about America.”
In what other ways is Sandburg “Whitmanesque” in his poem? What shared qualities about America or American ideals in general come through over both poems? Contrastingly, how does the speaker’s voice in each poem demonstrate a different vision of America? You may utilize thoughts and examples from your responses on theme and tone along with information you learned through outside sources in the Pre-Reading Prompt and Activities.
By Walt Whitman
A Glimpse
Walt Whitman
America
Walt Whitman
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Walt Whitman
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
Walt Whitman
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Walt Whitman
For You O Democracy
Walt Whitman
Hours Continuing Long
Walt Whitman
I Sing the Body Electric
Walt Whitman
I Sit and Look Out
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Walt Whitman
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