Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself
Analysis of “Song of Myself”
In Lesson 6, you read three selections from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself: “I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,” “A child said What is the grass?” and “I understand the large hearts of heroes.” As mentioned in the lesson, Song of Myself is a work that is true to its title. In this long poem, Whitman tries to step into the experiences of other living things and share those experiences with the reader. As he “loafs” and looks at the grass, Whitman celebrates his life and individuality, reveling in the senses and in his feeling of unity with all things.
You also focused on literary elements such as free verse, cadence, alliteration, imagery, assonance, and parallel structure. For this connection, you will
analyze and break down another excerpt from Song of Myself to continue to hone your skills in poetry analysis.
Directions:
To complete Connection 2, you must choose a new poem from Song of Myself to analyze. You may not choose one of the three that you read in Lesson 6.
1. Type or copy and paste the following website into your internet browser’s address bar: http://philosophy.csusb.edu/~tmoody/SS07%20HUM344%20songofmyselfweb.html. Here you will find William C. Hummel and Ann Woodlief’s site, “Walt Whitman: Web Study Text of Song of Myself.” You are provided with the entire poem and additional commentary/notes.
2. Choose a new excerpt from poems 1–10 to analyze. As a reminder, you may not choose #1 or #6.
3. Read through the excerpt you’ve chosen at least two times, once to yourself and then again aloud. Reading the excerpt multiple times will help further your understanding of the poem.
4. Complete an analysis of the poem by answering the Guided Analysis questions, which you can download by clicking the link within Lesson 6. Note that you will need to create a new separate Word document that does not include the sample analysis. You will submit your newly created Word document containing your answers for Connection 2.
In Lesson 6, you read three selections from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself: “I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,” “A child said What is the grass?” and “I understand the large hearts of heroes.” As mentioned in the lesson, Song of Myself is a work that is true to its title. In this long poem, Whitman tries to step into the experiences of other living things and share those experiences with the reader. As he “loafs” and looks at the grass, Whitman celebrates his life and individuality, reveling in the senses and in his feeling of unity with all things.
You also focused on literary elements such as free verse, cadence, alliteration, imagery, assonance, and parallel structure. For this connection, you will
analyze and break down another excerpt from Song of Myself to continue to hone your skills in poetry analysis.
Directions:
To complete Connection 2, you must choose a new poem from Song of Myself to analyze. You may not choose one of the three that you read in Lesson 6.
1. Type or copy and paste the following website into your internet browser’s address bar: http://philosophy.csusb.edu/~tmoody/SS07%20HUM344%20songofmyselfweb.html. Here you will find William C. Hummel and Ann Woodlief’s site, “Walt Whitman: Web Study Text of Song of Myself.” You are provided with the entire poem and additional commentary/notes.
2. Choose a new excerpt from poems 1–10 to analyze. As a reminder, you may not choose #1 or #6.
3. Read through the excerpt you’ve chosen at least two times, once to yourself and then again aloud. Reading the excerpt multiple times will help further your understanding of the poem.
4. Complete an analysis of the poem by answering the Guided Analysis questions, which you can download by clicking the link within Lesson 6. Note that you will need to create a new separate Word document that does not include the sample analysis. You will submit your newly created Word document containing your answers for Connection 2.