Question

In this section, you’ll illustrate an understanding of figurative language and nuances in word meanings.

Middle schoolers continue to ask for help on their assignments during National Poetry Month. Today, a young boy, Noah, is working through a difficult poem by another famous American poet named Walt Whitman.

Noah is confused by the first lines, as he says he has never heard an animal talk.

He’s seeking clarification for the following part:

“The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

After you read the poem together, Noah asks, “Can you explain this?”

From your studies, you know that Whitman is employing a literary device, which attributes human characteristics to nonhuman things, such as animals, plants, or weather.

Which literary device do you explain to Noah is being used in Whitman’s poem?
Question 4 options:

Personification


Alliteration


Allegory


Metaphor

Answer 1

Personification.

Whitman gives the hawk human actions/feelings (“accuses me,” “complains”), which is attributing human traits to a nonhuman creature.