Specimen Days
E839788
Specimen Days is a genre-blending novel by Michael Cunningham that interweaves three thematically linked stories across different time periods, all inspired by the life and writings of Walt Whitman.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Specimen Days canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T10091673 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Specimen Days Context triple: [Michael Cunningham, notableWork, Specimen Days]
-
A.
Specimen Days
Specimen Days is a prose work by Walt Whitman that blends memoir, nature writing, and reflections on the American Civil War and 19th-century life.
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B.
The Unwinding Hours
The Unwinding Hours is a Scottish alternative rock band formed by former members of Aereogramme, known for its atmospheric, melodic sound.
-
C.
Almanac of the Dead
Almanac of the Dead is a sprawling, experimental novel by Leslie Marmon Silko that interweaves Indigenous history, prophecy, and political resistance across the Americas.
-
D.
The Ruins
The Ruins is a 2008 horror film, based on Scott Smith’s novel, about a group of tourists trapped at an isolated Mayan ruin menaced by a malevolent, sentient vine.
-
E.
The Sufferer & the Witness
The Sufferer & the Witness is a politically charged punk rock album by Rise Against known for its melodic hardcore sound and socially conscious lyrics.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Specimen Days Target entity description: Specimen Days is a genre-blending novel by Michael Cunningham that interweaves three thematically linked stories across different time periods, all inspired by the life and writings of Walt Whitman.
-
A.
Specimen Days
Specimen Days is a prose work by Walt Whitman that blends memoir, nature writing, and reflections on the American Civil War and 19th-century life.
-
B.
The Unwinding Hours
The Unwinding Hours is a Scottish alternative rock band formed by former members of Aereogramme, known for its atmospheric, melodic sound.
-
C.
Almanac of the Dead
Almanac of the Dead is a sprawling, experimental novel by Leslie Marmon Silko that interweaves Indigenous history, prophecy, and political resistance across the Americas.
-
D.
The Ruins
The Ruins is a 2008 horror film, based on Scott Smith’s novel, about a group of tourists trapped at an isolated Mayan ruin menaced by a malevolent, sentient vine.
-
E.
The Sufferer & the Witness
The Sufferer & the Witness is a politically charged punk rock album by Rise Against known for its melodic hardcore sound and socially conscious lyrics.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
genre-blending novel
ⓘ
novel ⓘ |
| author | Michael Cunningham ⓘ |
| awarded |
Michael Cunningham received the 2005 PEN Center USA Award for Fiction for "Specimen Days"
ⓘ
linked to:
PEN West Award
|
| centralTheme |
American identity
ⓘ
family and loss ⓘ immigration ⓘ industrialization ⓘ influence of Walt Whitman ⓘ technology and posthumanism ⓘ terrorism ⓘ urban life ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| followedBy | By Nightfall ⓘ |
| genre |
crime fiction
ⓘ
historical fiction ⓘ literary fiction ⓘ science fiction ⓘ speculative fiction ⓘ |
| hasCharacterType |
child visionary
ⓘ
female immigrant ⓘ male authority figure ⓘ |
| hasForm |
hardcover
ⓘ
paperback ⓘ print ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 978-0-374-29963-9 ⓘ |
| hasMotif |
alien and cyborg bodies
ⓘ
angels and visions ⓘ machines and mechanization ⓘ repetition of names and images across eras ⓘ terror and security ⓘ |
| inspiredBy | Walt Whitman ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| marketedAs | novel in three parts ⓘ |
| narrativeTechnique |
interlinked narratives across time
ⓘ
intertextual quotation of Whitman ⓘ recurrent characters in different incarnations ⓘ |
| numberOfStories | 3 ⓘ |
| pageCount | approximately 336 ⓘ |
| precededBy | The Hours ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2005 ⓘ |
| publisher | Farrar, Straus and Giroux ⓘ |
| settingPlace | New York City ⓘ |
| settingTimePeriod |
19th century
ⓘ
contemporary era ⓘ near future ⓘ |
| structure | triptych of three linked novellas ⓘ |
| titleOrigin | alludes to Walt Whitman’s prose work "Specimen Days" ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Specimen Days Description of subject: Specimen Days is a genre-blending novel by Michael Cunningham that interweaves three thematically linked stories across different time periods, all inspired by the life and writings of Walt Whitman.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.