Question

How are Sandburg's "Grass" and Millay's "Spring" similar?

A. They are both about the pain of a dying soldier.

B. They are metaphors for starting over again.

C. They are both about beauty trying to hide death.

D. They are both about appreciating the cycle of life.

Answer 1

Sandburg's "Grass" and Millay's "Spring" both similarly use the beauty of nature to obscure the grim reality of death, which correlates with option C stating that they are about beauty trying to hide death.

Step-by-step explanation:

When comparing Carl Sandburg's "Grass" and Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Spring," we find that the most fitting similarity between the two poems is their representation of beauty trying to hide death. This is option C as stated in the question. Both poems can be seen as elegies, which are poems that commemorate or mourn a death, yet they address this theme differently. In "Grass," the green grass covers the horrors of war and the slain soldiers, standing as a metaphor for how life continues and the world forgets the tragedies of the past. Millay's "Spring," on the other hand, subtly references the death that persists beneath the surface of the blooming season, suggesting that with new life, there also comes death. Both poems, therefore, juxtapose the revival of nature with the concealment of death's reality.