Question

What important theme of realism is reflected in these lines from “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman?

And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me, I smell the
white roses sweet-scented and growing,
I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish'd breasts of melons.

the beauty of nature and human life
the beautiful and harsh realities of life
the harsh realities of a cruel world
the mystery of the food chain in nature

Answer 1

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Answer 2

Here at iwp.uiowa.edu/whitmanweb/en/section-49 , you'll find that

Yes, the poet tells us, the corpse becomes “manure,” but that manure grows new life, and, when we “smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,” we need to remember they are not just growing out of death but are composed of death (any new plant’s leafing happens only because of the “leavings of many deaths”). We shock ourselves into the realization that this body of ours is in fact the “leavings of many deaths”; each of us exists only because of those deaths, and each of us has life only because “life”—whatever this animating force that we call life is—is perpetually transferred: there is an eternal procession of “promotions” (etymologically, a “moving forward”), as matter is continually re-formed and put in motion by what we call “soul.”

So I'll hazard a guess at b, but that isn't all that okay because is it necessarily harsh to life? I mean sure, its gruesome, that all we eat is in the end result of death ... but its just the food chain, right?