Nov 18, 2008
In “Scented Herbage of My Breast,” as in the other poems in the collection entitled Leaves of Grass, the poet Walt Whitman adopts a mask or persona through whom he speaks. The voice of this persona assumes various tones, usually ones that suggest a robust, celebratory, all-embracing stance toward life. In this particular lyric poem, the persona addresses himself to herbage, or grass, a symbol that is at the heart of the volume of poetry in which this poem appears.
The speaker begins by noting the timelessness of the grass, whose perennial roots are...
[The entire page is 1139 words long]
©2000-2008
Enotes.com Inc.
All Rights Reserved