I Hear America Singing

"I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman and "I, Too" by Langston Hughes share a common theme of proclaiming the identity of an American. The two poems share the words "Sing" and "America", signifying a sense of patriotism. Americans can show patriotism by singing about their country. The two poems are similar in their forms in which that they are in free verse. The two poems also utilize colloquial language to simplify their poems. The two poets lived after the Civil War had ended which carries oppression, racial segregation and lots of tension. Although they lived in similar periods, each poet's perspective of the identity of America is entirely different.

Walt Whitman was an influential American poet, who believed that the relationship between

The word "singing" is used in almost every line of the poem. Whitman uses different methods to create the poem to be read in a flowing melodic way. One method is that he compiled the poem into one stanza which allows the

The simplicity of the poem emphasizes the powerful message underneath it. The pauses and stops in the poem allow each line to be read calmly and boldly, claiming each line its statement. The poem sets the tone a sense of declaration and boldness.

In the first line of the poem: "I, too, sing America," proclaims a bold statement that the speaker, too, praises that he is an American. A claim he is making a statement that did not represent him as an American. The second stanza: "I am the darker brother," helps to identify that claim. The usage of the pronouns "I" and "They" shows the readers that there is a separation, an isolation represented by the "I" away from the group "They." The "I" indicates not only, the speaker but a group of people that were racially segregated and oppressed during this time, which is representing black minorities. The line: "They send me to eat in the kitchen/When company comes" implies that the speaker is not associated with the majority group and segregated away from them. However, in the line of the first stanza "But I laugh,/And eat well,/And grow strong," there is oppression, the speaker says that he will persevere through it and become stronger because of it. In the third stanza: "Tomorrow,/ I'll be at the table"