Individual and National Identity.

Directions: Some of the questions refer to the readings; other questions ask you to probe your own belief systems about yourself. Answer each with complete sentences.

Song of Myself – Walt Whitman page 408-411

1. In section 1, what is the speaker’s relationship with nature?
2. Do you feel “close to nature” or are you the type of person who considers “roughing it” when you stay at a 2 star hotel instead of a 5 star hotel?
3. What do lines 6-14 of section 6 reveal about the speaker’s attitude toward death?
4. What is your own attitude toward death? Are you scared of it? Are you okay with the fact that we all must die? Is death at an early age worse than death in a person’s 90’s?
5. How do the images of grass and air in section 17 convey a belief in the spiritual unity of all natural forms?
6. Do you feel a spiritual unity with all things, or are you not too spiritual at all?
7. In section 51, whom do you think the speaker is addressing?
8. As you live your life, do you care what others think about you?

A Noiseless Patient Spider – Walt Whitman page 414

9. In “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” how is the speaker’s soul similar to the spider?
10. In what sense is his soul’s “venturing” different from the spider’s exploration?
11. Have you done any research, or readings, or such about your future? About what you want to be, or what you want to do with your life? If so, what have you found out?