Section 6 of the poem. 3:40-5:20
“What is the grass?” a little boy asks the man. The man is not able to answer the question because he is not really sure what the grass is either. Walt Whitman gives multiple explanations as to what the grass is. One example is he states that the grass is the Lord’s handkerchief. He also says,
“Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.”
This stanza is important because this poem was written in 1892. At this time white’s and black’s were not considered equal and they were even shunned if they were used in the same sentence. But, in this section of the poem, Whitman basically says that grass does not judge anyone. Whether it be a white man’s property or a black man’s, rich or poor, grass will continue to grow on any property. This is significant because many people would disagree with this statement back at the time the poem was written. The grass is itself a child, always emerging anew from the realm of death into a new life; it is a kind of coded writing that seems to speak equality since it grows among the rich and poor, among black and white.
The professor in the video then says that grass is the sign of life emerging from death. Because grass can grow from dirt (death) and is able to grow where as animals rely on it for the necessity of life, it proves the symbolism of the poem.
“They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”
Whitman and the man in my video both agree that there is a cycle of death and life that guarantees that death is never an ending but always a beginning of ongoing life, which is forever moving “onward and outward,” making death far different than we might have supposed, not an ending but an ongoing process of dissolving again into diffuse and ever-leafing life. They both believe that the soul goes elsewhere while the body is the one that continues the cycle of life.
I find this interesting because in my philosophy class, Plato believed the cycle of life and death revolves solely on the soul and not on the body. He believed that when we die, our souls go to the intelligible realm (higher reality) while our body stays behind and just decomposes. When are soul goes to the intelligible realm, it then finds another body to inhabit and then continues the cycle of life. It is also believed that we don’t experience true knowledge until the time of death.
This is interesting to me because it is the complete opposite of the belief of Whitman and the Professor in my video. But the conclusion that can be taken from both is, there is a cycle of life and death that is never ending.