Whitman and the City

Whitman and the City


Please read Theory and Terms.


Possible essay topics on Whitman


1. Read Baudelaire's definition of the flaneur (on theory page), and write a three page essay that considers the ways the persona in Song of Myself is and is not adequately described by Baudelaire's terms.
(Adapted from Whitman and the City)


2. Compare Whitman's response to the city in "Song of Myself" to another nineteenth-century that focuses on the city. Possibilities include Melville's "Bartleby," Poe's "The Man of the Crowd," and Wordsworth's "Residence in London." Ask me about other texts you may be interested in writing about. (3 pages)
(Adapted from Whitman and the City) 


3. In “Song of Myself,” in what ways are the presence of slaves enabling for the narrator and his identity? How do the two accounts of runaway slaves differ?  How is the different treatment of the runaway related to the overall movement of the poem? (3 pages)
-from Kenneth Price Univ. Nebraska, Lincoln