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.
