The Prairie-grass Dividing
The Prairie-grass Dividing - meaning Summary
Democracy in Prairie Terms
Whitman uses the image of prairie grass to call for a robust, unpolished American companionship and character. He celebrates people shaped by open, sunlit life: independent, audacious, physically alive, and unbowed by authority. The poem links democratic selfhood to the land, praising inward, earth-born passion and a simple, unconstrained spirit identified with inland America. It reads as an exhortation to embodied freedom and communal vitality.
Read Complete AnalysesTHE prairie-grass dividing—its special odor breathing, I demand of it the spiritual corresponding, Demand the most copious and close companionship of men, Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings, Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious, Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command—leading, not following, Those with a never-quell’d audacity—those with sweet and lusty flesh, clear of taint, Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors, as to say, Who are you? Those of earth-born passion, simple, never-constrain’d, never obedient, Those of inland America.
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