Carl Sandburg's Use of Allusion in Grass

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Carl Sandburg's Use of Allusion in "Grass"

Carl Sandburg's short poem "Grass" represents a metaphor for the disguise of history. The persona tells how histories that have taken place are sooner or later disregarded. The persona tells that the histories should not be disregarded, but be left the way it is as cited in the poem "I am the grass .Let me work." People should notice the events that took place and learn from their mistakes and be better people. The places that are mentioned in the poem are allusions. The allusions are indirect references that Carl Sandburg utilizes to exhibit the seriousness of the past events.

Every place that is mentioned in the poem is a well-known bloody fight in wars that claimed many lives. The opening stanza of the poem is a command from the grass to soldiers at war in Austerlitz and Waterloo to kill as many people as they can and shovel them under the grass so that it has enough history to pile under itself and wipe out all the marks of combat. Austerlitz is a village where on Dec. 2, 1805; Napoleon escorted an outnumbered French army to vic...

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