EN 210 Exam 1 Review The test will be some combination of multiple choice passage identification and short essay Texts Covered and Focus Biographical information provided in the NAAL for the following authors Any power points on Blackboard In class lectures and terms discussed Poetry Significant lines discussed in class What happens in the poem What is the poem doing I Walt Whitman Different levels of language Whitman s particular brand of free verse Song of Myself A Sections 1 2 3 6 8 9 10 11 12 15 33 50 52 Whitman is giving us the distinctive American literature that Emerson called for a treatment of democracy not as a concept but as a living reality where all are equal not in theory but in day to day practice It is a great celebration of the dream that is America Song of Myself is about affirmation finding good all over the place and about the beauty and delight of both the human body and the human soul To me it s always meant a lot that Allen Ginsberg singled out one line in Whitman s poem for particular praise I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones He said that the meaning of the line really hit him and stuck with him when he heard his fleshy high school English teacher read the line aloud THEMES Democracy as a way of life The cycle of growth and death The Beauty of an Individual Section 1 The first section of this poem contains the purpose of the overall poem Whitman declares that he writes this poem as a form of celebration of his own being It then quickly becomes obvious however that he is celebrating all of humanity not just himself He says that we are to believe whatever he tells us and that we need to take on the various roles that he is going to assume in this poem He states his belief in a common humanity because we all share the same atoms that make up life Whitman then describes how he and his soul who takes the form of another character separate from Whitman himself look at nature together and in particular contemplate a blade of grass He ends up by saying that he is determined to speak out in spite of creeds and schools that may counsel him to keep quiet He wants to express his original energy Section 2 Whitman is speaking to the general you In an increasingly industrialized world one in which people rarely contemplate the majesty and wonder of the natural world he asks the question as something of a wake up call A thousand acres is a wonderous thing the earth itself is a marvel yet we take so much for granted in our sequestered and sanitized lives The first section Whitman takes on the role of Everyman a typical American working man but he also represents himself as a sensuous poet The one thing all humans have in common is their sexuality The shifts in the different sections between body and soul illustrate the central theme of the endless renewal of life When the individual dies life goes on but the individual can still triumph over death by accepting this knowledge and feeling at one with life In the second section to which you are referring Whitman establishes the connections between individuals to other people to nature and to the whole universe In the stanza just before the one you re referencing he tells us that the air we breathe isn t like a perfume but it reflects the air of nature that can be found beside a river in the woods or basically anything in nature He then continues with the effects of this air on him My respiration and inspiration the beating of my heart the passing of blood and air through my lungs makes this connection It is an atmosphere that brings to life all of the senses of his breath his smell his touch and his taste Whitman makes the connection between nature and man and our physical bodies with our spiritual beings which is the unity of our bodies and souls Section 3 This passage of Song of Myself Whitman is speaking out about the in his eyes mistaken tendency of the human mind to measure to compare to contest to make a combat of everything to anticipate future rewards and pleasures instead of enjoying the present moment His mind is asking Shall I ignore my immediate pleasure my present ness to anticipate rewards down the road simply because they my eyes may see more reward in the future My mind looks ahead and measures to a cent the value of the future but I resist this natural tendency because it diminishes the joy of being in the present moment Imbedded in this image is the metaphor of two persons becoming one cf Cummings One is not half of two two are halves of one Section 6 Whitman explores first through the eyes of a child what grass is They both venture mild conjecture that the grass has something to do with life but the section quickly shifts to death Whitman considers how the grass grows untended out of the earth a place bodies have been buried He imagines that a blade of grass could represent any number of types of people young men old grandmothers or even babies who were ill at birth and really never had a chance in the earth But the spring of a blade represents something to Whitman The smallest sprout shows there is really no death And if ever there was it led forward life and does not wait at the end to arrest it And ceas d the moment life appear d All goes onward and outward nothing collapses And to die is different from what any one supposed and luckier I think he is saying these lines that when a new blade sprouts out of a grave that dead person actually just gave new life Death begets more life and that is something to think about thematically not just as a symbol You can connect that to things that die in your life or circumstances figuratively Section 8 Whitman describes his experience with all kinds of people and situations as if to justify his claim to be the companion of all people He has seen everything from little kids to suicides that have just shot themselves The point seems to be that the world is a chaotic place filled with good and bad things but still Whitman isn t going to judge anyone He s just an observer see Section 4 and the Me Myself He comes again and again to observe the seedy side of life like crime and adultery He seems to be in a city Section 9 Whitman never says that he takes pleasure in anything in particular he gives us a very pleasurable scene and his action in it from which to infer his pleasure He has taken pleasure in using his body for hard work He enjoys the play of the light on the muted colors He has …