A Dream of Nature

I initially chose the entry “Thoughts Under an Oak --A Dream” because in “Song of Myself” Whitman expresses his infatuation with nature and its purities.  But upon reading it I found that it connects to Whitman on a multitude of other levels as well.  Whitman speaks of nature in an eloquent manner, as if he only feels whole when he is completely emerged in it’s elements.  He speaks of the wind as being “Nature’s mighty whisper” that flows over everything and takes on the quality of being a connective element.  This concept in a sense parallels that of his own thoughts and contemplations, seeing as under the oak tree he “muses” over his life “connecting events, dates, as links of a chain” etc.  Whitman’s thoughts are like that of the wind, yet while he reflects upon his life and himself, he still finds time to stop and take note of the beauty in the nature around him.

There is an intimate quality to this journal entry that only further deepens my understanding of Leaves of Grass as a whole.  In the book Whitman yearns for that sensual and connected feeling between the reader and the poem, and in this entry it is as if he is the reader, and the nature around him is the poem that he must unite with.  The entry demonstrates his sensual connection with nature, and through that connection we learn that he is able to adequately analyze his own life, without forgetting the importance of the life that surrounds him.

The Importance of Grass

“A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?....I do not know what it is any more than he”  (pg. 4).

Finding two lines to entitle as being my “favorite” is incredibly hard when it comes to this poem, because every line seems to be saturated with profound concepts and striking mental images.  However, out of the multitude of sentences I could have chosen, the one listed above remains to be (for me personally) the most memorable and thought provoking, for countless different reasons.

For starters, these two lines seem to touch upon the meaning of the work in its totality.  Whitman almost seems to rejoice in knowing that he does not know all, and by not answering the child he is showing the reader that one should at times accept their ignorance, rather than attempt to babble in subjects of which they have no knowledge.  It reminds me of an encounter that occurs later on in the book when he and a young girl are looking into a coffin and he says to her, “You don’t understand this, do you, my child?” “No,” she answers, to which he kindly responds, “Neither do I.”   This concept follows a similar path as the lines I chose above, because both touch upon the notion that there are some things that will forever remain beyond man’s comprehension.  Leaves and death, knowledge and naivety, extraneous in the literal sense, and yet somehow Whitman shows that from their literal contradiction stems a universal connectivity that can only be understood through its absence.

Nature Actualized

The Wilmot Proviso was attached to a bill in 1846 during the Mexican War as an amendment that provided President Polk with two million dollars.  This bill (with the stipulations of the Wilmot Proviso attached) proposed that “None of the territory acquired in the Mexican War should be open to slavery” (Infoplease.com).  Although the bill was denied by the Senate, it nonetheless brought forth the crucial issue of slavery  and presented America with its countless complications.

Whitman, who was a strong advocate of unity and tolerance, was plausibly aware not only of the amendment, but of the many complexities that arose with it as well.  In The Leaves of Grass Whitman harbors a runaway slave for a week, in which he cleans his wounds and says, “I had him sit next to me at table” thus demonstrating his desire to bridge the gap between black and white, between acceptance and dissent.

In the core of Whitman’s philosophy according to “Song of Myself” he expresses an innate desire to embrace what is natural and raw, as an attempt to further himself from indulging in a dependent relationship with society.  He notes the importance of being able to “[Grow] among black folks as among white” and gives no preference to either, seeing as they are equal in the eyes of nature and therefore in the eyes of himself.  To deny an individual a natural right such as equality, is to deny them the right to smell their own perfumes and rejoice in the beauty of their own existence.

Whitman understood what most Americans took hundreds of years to even begin to fathom.  He understood that freedom and the right to simply ‘be’ is an organic quality no man may give to another, but is a conundrum that man must actualize and conquer within himself.