“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.
I hadn't really connected the two parts of the poem together. I'm not sure why, but I must've skimmed over the conversation between Whitman and the girl about death. It's an interesting comparison that I'm glad I've now opened my eyes to.
ReplyDeleteI like this quote as well. Whitman though is sneaky in his joy of not understanding. He often tells us what he knows of or is a part of but it seems that mostly those things are carnal, or emotional. Your matching these lines with the ones about the girl and the coffin reminded me of the part where he says "Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?/I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and i know it." (5)
ReplyDeleteIt makes you wonder what Whitman knows and doesn't or of what he knows that he isn't telling us. I like your connection though and it does seem that Whitman often revels in observance rather than knowledge.
Building off Jason, this also reminds me of the part where he writes, "O span of youth! Ever-push'd elasticity! / O manhood, balanced, florid, and full." He again acknowledges the limits of what a human being can know. If you think about it this world is about limits. how far can we push ourselves before there is a vast precipice of unknown. I think Walt says this well in what you pointed out and also in the elastic, balanced, florid, and fullness of life.
ReplyDeleteAgain, one of those great Whitman paradoxes - - a poem that attempts to "know-it-all" (a kind of encyclopedia of American culture/experience) that at the same time embraces ignorance! Donald Barthelme once wrote a great essay about how creative writing has to start with "not-knowing," that creativity depends much more on not knowing things rather than knowing. I think that not-knowing defines a certain kind of open (American?) aesthetic . . .
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