What comes to mind when considering the dead (spiritual) and the living (mortal) in relation to landscape is a cemetery. The imagery of vegetation, stone, architecture, transcendent spirituality, bodily presence all coexist to shed insight on the interconnectedness of the different stages of life. The living come to visit the dead, the dead lay rotting away, freshly cold bodies are lowered into the earth, plants, grass and flowers sprout from the earth that engulfs the bodies, all of this is very interesting.
Using a the cemetery as a cultural object in which to place some thematic motifs in Whitman's "Blades of Grass:, I would ask that one examine the agency of the life cycle in this poem. What is the relationship between spiritual transcendence and physical deterioration,land scape and life, ritual and space. And in light of all these questions, what about one's findings deepens the understanding of this work as a classically American work?
Using a the cemetery as a cultural object in which to place some thematic motifs in Whitman's "Blades of Grass:, I would ask that one examine the agency of the life cycle in this poem. What is the relationship between spiritual transcendence and physical deterioration,land scape and life, ritual and space. And in light of all these questions, what about one's findings deepens the understanding of this work as a classically American work?
What is Whitman's "Blades of Grass"?
ReplyDeleteWhat particular cultural object - - picture? text? - - are you asking students to engage with?
What kinds of things are you asking them to do - - in terms of activities, skills, practices - - with this object/artifact?
How will you evaluate their labor?