November 4, 2020 Attendance Check-In and Engagement Grade

Focus on Whitman’s Poetry, Literary Elements, and Characteristics of Romanticism

LITERARY
ELEMENT
S HOW THEY REVEAL THEMES
Look for words that stand out because of the poet’s manipulation of lines,
repeated words and phrases that create rhythm and heighten emotion in key
places, and lists of people, things, or attributes that create rhythm and
Free Verse evoke imagery.
Think about the types of images created by sensory language and why the
Imagery poet wants readers to “see” these pictures.
Figures of Comparisons in the form of similes and metaphors tell readers how the
Speech poet wants them to view certain idea.
A person, place, or thing that has meaning beyond itself is often central to
Symbols the poem’s meaning.
Direct
Statements Sometimes the poet expresses ideas directly.

Characteristics of Romanticism
[from Background to American Renaissance PowerPoint]

´ Values feeling and intuition over reason

´ Places faith in inner experience and the power of the imagination
´ Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature
´ Prefers youthful innocence to educated sophistication
´ Champions individual freedom and the worth of the individual
´ Contemplates nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development
´ Looks backward to the wisdom of the past and distrusts progress
´ Finds beauty and truth in exotic locals, the supernatural realm, and the inner world of
the imagination
Song of Myself, 1 “I Celebrate myself, and sing myself” Walt Whitman1819-1982

I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loaf and invite my soul,

I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. 5

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.

Creeds and schools in abeyance, 10

Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

Assignment: For attendance and a quick engagement grade: Write a

complete statement where you. . .

Connect a cited quotation from Whitman’s poem to either imagery or

figurative language (from the literary elements chart) and to any one
of the Characteristics of Romanticism.
Example:

In the first poem from Song of Myself, titled, “I Celebrate Myself, and Sing Myself,” Walt

Whitman focuses championing the worth of the individual through a direct statement by

writing, “I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, / Hoping to cease not till

death” (8-9).

 I provide the author, title, genre information for the purpose of clarity.

 I focus on the Characteristic of Romanticism as championing the worth of the

individual and note the Literary Element he uses as a direct statement.

 I format the quoted lines of poetry using Modern Language Association

guidelines and provide the line numbers associated with the quoted evidence.