Animals - Walt Whitman

 

About the Poet:

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is a major figure in American poetry. He broke the tradition of rhymed and metrical poetry. He was famous for writing a revolutionary new kind of poetry which was not limited by rhyme or meter. It is called ‘free verse’. The poem ‘animals’ is an extract from ‘Song of Myself’ in his book, ‘Leaves of grass’.

Explanation:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are

so placid and self-contained,

I stand and look at them long and long.

Meanings:

Placid: calm, peaceful, without worries

Contained: keep up control, to be under control

Literary Devices:

Assonance: use of vowel sound ‘I’ (I, think, I, live, with, animals)

Repetition: use of the word ‘long’

Anaphora: ‘I’ word used at the start of two consecutive lines

 They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, 

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with

the mania of owning things,

Sweat: here it means complaining about something

Meanings:

Whine: cry

Sins: wrongdoing

Demented: mad, disturbed

Literary Devices:

Anaphora: use of repeated words at the beginning of two or more consecutive lines (use of “they do not”)

Metaphor:  sweat and whine refer to the cries and complaints of human beings.

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that

lived thousands of years ago,

Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

So they show their relations to me and I accept them,

They bring me tokens of myself, they evince

them plainly in their possession

Meanings:

Kneels: bow down

Evince: show, reveal

Possession: ownership of something

Tokens: here, the qualities

Literary Devices:

Metaphor: The inner qualities of humans are referred to as tokens

I wonder where they get those tokens,

Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?

Meanings:

Negligently: Carelessly

Rhyme Scheme:

There is no rhyme scheme followed in the poem. The poem is written as a ‘free verse’.

Textual Questions and Answers:

1. Notice the use of the word ‘turn’ in the first line, “I think I could turn and live with animals…” What is the poet turning from?

The poet wants to turn away from living in the world of human beings. He finds animals more placid and self-contained and therefore, he wants to live with them.

2. Mention three things that humans do and animals don’t?

These are the three things that humans do and animals don’t:

Humans complain and cry about the miseries and sorrows they face.

Humans lie awake in the night thinking about their wrongdoings.

Humans talk about their duties towards God.

3. Do humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years ago? Discuss this in groups?

Yes, humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years ago. They could be some ancestors, saints or the preachers. Humans follow their dead as per their religion and beliefs. They worship and follow their dead people.

4. What are the ‘tokens’ that the poet says he may have dropped long ago, and which the animals have kept for him? Discuss this in class. (Hint: Whitman belongs to the Romantic tradition that includes Rousseau and Wordsworth, which holds that civilization has made humans false to their own true nature. What could be the basic aspects of our nature as living beings that humans choose to ignore or deny?)

The word tokens according to the poet is the good qualities in human beings. The poet feels that good qualities do not exist in human beings in the present day. The poet feels that humans have lost these tokens (desirable qualities like innocence, contentment, compassion, and so on) for the sake of materialistic things.