A Survey of Walt Whitman's Poetry Quiz

Answer: Free verse

Born on May 31, 1819, the American poet Walt Whitman was a humanist who incorporated both realism and transcendentalism into his works. He is sometimes called the "Father of Free Verse" according to David S. Reynolds in his "Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography". Free verse is a type of poetry that does not rhyme or have regular meter. Blank verse does not rhyme but is typically written in iambic pentameter.

Answer: Leaves of Grass

"The Prelude" is by William Wordsworth. "Songs of Experience" is by William Blake, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote "Idylls of the King". The first edition of "Leaves of Grass" was published in 1855. Whitman revised it repeatedly over his lifetime, so that it went from a collection of twelve poems to over 400.

The first edition he published at his own expense. The title likely comes from a line in one of his poems: "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars."

Answer: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" was written in 1865. The 206-line poem begins:

"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring."

It commemorates the death of Abraham Lincoln and uses celestial metaphors to refer to him, including "powerful western fallen star" and "great star disappear'd."

Answer: Captain

"O Captain! My Captain!" is another poem commemorating the death of Abraham Lincoln. It contains an extended metaphor in which Lincoln is the fallen captain (president) of a ship (the nation) and "the prize we sought" was victory in the Civil War.

The poem was first published in a pamphlet titled "Sequel to Drum-Taps" which contained 18 poems about the Civil War. The poem continues:

"The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead."

Answer: There Was A Child Went Forth

"There Was a Child Went Forth" is the only poem in Whitman's collection "Leaves of Grass" that does not use the first or second person even once. The poem begins:

"There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years."

"Song of Myself" and "I Sing the Body Electric" both use first person starting with their titles. "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" contains first person:

"Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing."

Answer: sing

These verses come from "Song of Myself". The poem continues:

"I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death."

"Song of Myself" was included, without a title, as the first poem in Walt Whitman's 1855 edition of "Leaves of Grass". In the 1856 edition, he called it "Poem of Walt Whitman, an American". In the next edition, the title was abbreviated to, simply, "Walt Whitman". It wasn't until the final, 1892 edition that it was given the title it is known by today: "Song of Myself".

Answer: open road

"Song of the Open Road" was included in Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" collection. It describes American westward expansion, which was a central theme in Whitman's poetry. The poem continues:

"Henceforth I ask not good-fortune-I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road."

Answer: multitudes

This quote comes from section 51 of "Song of Myself":

"Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab."

Answer: no

The attribution is questionable. The line is not found in any of Whitman's published poetry collections. The saying has also been attributed to Helen Keller, but it isn't to be found in any of her published works either. Versions of the saying, however, appear in "A Dictionary of American Proverbs" from 1992.

Answer: The learn'd astronomer

"When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" contrasts the stodgy delivery of knowledge to be found in the lectures of learned men with the personal experience to be had in nature itself:

"When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars."

Answer: Calamus

"Songs of Innocence" is a collection of poems by William Blake, and "Prufrock and Other Observations" is by T.S. Eliot. "Sea-Drift" is the name given to the section of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" that contains poems referring to the sea or seashore, such as "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life" and "On the Beach at Night."

The Calamus poems are often interpreted by literary critics as an expression of homosexual love. They appear in the "Leaves of Grass" collection. This section of poems takes its title from a common motif that runs throughout them - the Calamus root. Also known as Sweet Flag, the Calamus root is a marsh plant somewhat like the cat-tail. The Calamus poems include a sequence of twelve poems originally titled "Live Oak With Moss" in an unpublished manuscript. Some of the Calamus poems were edited out of the final 1860 version of "Leaves of Grass," perhaps because they were too personal.

Answer: Pioneers

"For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!"

This poem was included in the 1865 edition of "Leaves of Grass" and was a tribute to westward expansion. The stanzas, of which there are 26 total, contain four lines each. A series of Levi commercials once used a portion of this poem as read by Will Geer to advertise their jeans.

Answer: Christopher Columbus

The poem is titled "Prayer of Columbus" and continues with personal reflection:

"I am too full of woe!
Haply I may not live another day;
I cannot rest O God, I cannot eat or drink or sleep,
Till I put forth myself, my prayer, once more to Thee,
Breathe, bathe myself once more in Thee, commune with Thee,
Report myself once more to Thee."

The poem has been set to music by Robert Strassburg.

Answer: I, Too, Sing America

"I, too, sing America" is the first line of a poem by Langston Hughes. The Langston Hughes poem begins:

"I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong..."

Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" was originally titled "A Child's Remembrance" when it was published in the "Saturday Press" in December of 1859.

Answer: lawyer

"I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear," Whitman writes. He then goes on to speak of the carols of various working men, including the mechanic, carpenter, mason, boatman, deckhand, shoemaker, hatter, wood-cutter, and ploughboy. He also speaks of the singing of the hardworking mother, young wife, and girl sewing or washing. "Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else," Whitman writes.