Next

As suggested by the poem’s title, “I Hear America Singing” is set in the United States. But rather than being confined to a particular place in the United States, the speaker attempts to encompass all of America in a single, grandiose vision. That said, the speaker doesn’t reference any particular regions or landscapes. Instead, they focus on describing a range of different workers with various skill sets. From this variety, we readers can infer a variety of different settings as well. For example, shoemakers and hatters likely ply their trades in towns or city centers. By contrast, woodcutters and farmhands (Whitman uses the word “ploughboy” [line 7]) perform their labor in forests and fields, which suggests more rural locales. Nor does the speaker’s vision stop at the landscape. They also mention boatmen and deckhands, implying a vision of the vast seascapes across which these men sail, only occasionally returning home. In this way, the speaker conjures a total vision of America and its varied landscapes, but through implication rather than direct description. That is, they evoke the common landscape of the nation via the various laborers who work in and on that landscape, and who effectively build America.

Next section Themes

Take a Study Break