I Hear America Singing

Study Guide

Literary Devices

Rhyme

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Literary Devices Rhyme

Because Whitman wrote “I Hear America Singing” in free verse, the poem doesn’t follow a regular rhyme scheme. In fact, the poem doesn’t use any kind of rhyme. It’s true that internal rhymes do appear occasionally, but not frequently enough to make their presence significant. As for end rhyme, even if Whitman had used it, the sheer length of the lines would strain the ordinary reader’s capacity to “hear” it. So, rhyme doesn’t play a significant role in this poem. That said, Whitman does experiment with a technique that we might characterize as being the “opposite” of rhyme. That is, he uses a rhetorical technique known as anaphora, which involves the repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. Whereas rhyme traditionally serves as an ordering device in poetry, Whitman uses anaphora instead, thereby shifting attention from the end of the line to the beginning. As an example, consider the following lines (lines 3–5):

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck.

Notice how, even though each line increases in length, the similar opening for each line still creates a sense of order. This ordering function that effectively replaces rhyme in the poem.

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