I Hear America Singing Analysis

Whitman loved himself some free verse; some might even call him the father of free verse. He was so over regular rhyme and meter. For Whitman, free verse meant Freedom (with a capital "F"). But tha...

The speaker of "I Hear America Singing" is the same speaker of all of Whitman's poems: a guy who sounds suspiciously like Whitman himself. Now, it's never a good idea in poetry to confuse the poet...

"I Hear America Singing" takes place in, well, America (duh). It's a big country, and Whitman has us hopping all over it. One second, we're on a steamboat deck, the next, we're chilling with a shoe...

"I Hear America Singing" is basically an 11 line list (for more on this form, see the "Form and Meter" section). When you read it out loud—and we recommend that you do—its listiness really come...

The title of this poem is pretty straightforward. It's all about a dude who hears the voices of Americans singing as they work (Whistle While You Work, anyone?) , and it's called "I Hear America Si...

Walt Whitman sure did love a good list. Lists are all over his poems and "I Hear America Singing" is no different. The poem uses a particularly list-friendly poetic device: anaphora. Anaphora is th...

One of the best things about our pal Walt is that he knew how to write a straightforward poem. In "I Hear America Singing," Whitman's not interested in complex metaphors or tortured meter. He speak...

Walt Whitman's got his own mall in Huntington, New York. We think he'd love it.(Source.)Whitman was a totally shameless self-promoter. He wrote anonymous reviews (glowing, of course) of his own boo...

This poem's about work, not sex. There's nothing titillating to see here, folks.