Humdrum
Humdrum - meaning Summary
Restarting Identity and Life
Sandburg imagines living and dying a million times in ordinary, repetitive worlds yet seeks variety through changing names and house numbers at each rebirth. The poem treats mortality and repetition lightly, proposing identity shifts as a way to renew experience and escape sameness. Its closing questions address the reader directly, inviting reflection on whether repeated lives would be tolerable without change to personal particulars.
Read Complete AnalysesIF I had a million lives to live and a million deaths to die in a million humdrum worlds, I'd like to change my name and have a new house number to go by each and every time I died and started life all over again. I wouldn't want the same name every time and the same old house number always, dying a million deaths, dying one by one a million times: -would you? or you? or you?
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