Man's Final Lesson

One thing in particular that attracts me to Specimen Days, is the personal journalese quality with which Whitman writes.  It is true that in Leaves of Grass Whitman asks the reader to get to know him on an intimate level, but at times I feel as though  I am able to more naturally connect with Whitman through reading his journals.

For instance, the entry that struck me deeply this week was “Death of a Hero” for a multitude of reasons.  Whitman speaks of a young soldier who risks his life for another only to get shot in the knee cap, and is consequently sentenced to face amputation and eventual death.  He writes about the soldier using language easy to articulate, yet manages to place the dying soldier in a brilliant and heroic light.  However, what is most interesting about this entry is the line he includes at the very end from the soldier himself who says, “to-day the doctor says I must die -- all is over with me -- ah, so young to die...dear brother Thomas, I have been brave but wicked -- pray for me.”   Quite fascinating, the contradiction the soldier himself proclaims, wicked yet heroic, and forced to face the end before his life has even truly began.

Death is a terrifying inevitability that sooner or later we all must come to accept, but acceptance does not equate with comprehension.  Whitman undoubtedly understands that he knows not what the prospect of death implies, but somehow he has acquired a certain level of acceptance like the soldier has in acknowledging his end.

I might be straying away from the cardinal theme of this entry, yet I cannot help but mention a certain song this all reminds me of.  The song is titled “Nothing Less” by Living Legends, and in one of the last verses an artist says, “One last breath and everything could be pleasant, life through death, man’s final lesson.”  Personally, I feel as though this relates directly to both the soldier and Whitman, and appropriately sums up the meaning of this particular journal.  For both Whitman in his existence, and the soldier in his demise, seem to realize that death is the ultimate lesson of man, and as an inexorable consequence it is the redeeming trial that mankind must face in a dignified light.