Cullen's The Wise

The Cool Dead

Sep 15, 2008 Linda Sue Grimes

The theme of Countée Cullen's "The Wise" ironically dramatizes the notion that in death one becomes immune to the trammels of earthly duality.

Countée Cullen’s “The Wise” consists of four three-line stanzas or tercets. The poem has the following rime scheme: AAA BBB CCC DDD.

First Tercet: “Dead men are wisest, for they know”

In the first tercet, the speaker of “The Wise” makes a startling claim: “Dead men are wisest.” The dead, that is, the deceased bodies lying in the grave, cannot be the wisest because they no longer retain the capacity for thinking. So upon encountering such an obvious falsehood, the reader shifts his thought to the soul that has left the physical body, and thus understands the speaker to be referring to the wise soul, not the dead body, which is incapable of any human activity.

A problem then confronts the reader as the tercet proceeds: the dead are wisest because they “know / How far the roots of flowers go, / How long a seed must rot to grow.” At this point, the reader discovers that instead of taking his listener/reader on a mystical adventure of souls in the after-life, the speaker is merely creating a fantasy. Therefore the reader must “suspend disbelief” to accompany the speaker on his fantastic, imaginary journey.

Thus, the dead are wisest of all because they are down under the ground and therefore capable of observing those roots on the flowers. An obvious claim it may seem; those above ground cannot observe those roots without digging them up which will kill the flowers.

And the dead are also capable of determining how a seed behaves before it begins to germinate. Again, those above ground can only learn this by disturbing the seed’s progress, something that any farmer or gardener would never do. Thus, the dead are really the smart ones, nay, the “wisest,” because they, being planted below ground themselves, can observe the activities of both seeds and roots.

Second Tercet: “Dead men alone bear frost and rain”

The speaker then reports further support for this claim that the dead are the wisest: they can tolerate with equanimity the opposites that plague the living. The cold of frost brings them no irritation, and neither does the rain, for which they need no umbrellas.

Furthermore, the dead are never disturbed by any earthly annoyances. They are not prone to the passions that living hearts and minds suffer, because they “feel no stir of joy or pain.”

Third Tercet: “Dead men alone are satiate”

Unlike the living who are so often dissatisfied with their lot, “[d]ead men alone are satiate.” Again, the duality of earthly life does not interfere with their “sleep and dream.” They need not bear the weight of suffering caused by “love or hate.”

Fourth Tercet: “Strange, men should flee their company”

In the fourth tercet, the speaker then makes what literally would again be a starting claim: he reports that he thinks it is “strange” that people do not enjoy the company of the dead. Because the speaker has offered evidence that supports his claim that being dead is a pretty cool thing, since they do not have to suffer the miseries of the living, the reader can readily agree that he has made being dead sound inviting.

But then finally the speaker offers a chilling admission: not only does he think it is strange that people “flee [the] company” of the dead, he also thinks it strange that people fail to understand why the speaker wishes he were dead. His logic seems infallible, and he does not put his wish in such pedestrian terms but avers he “long[s] to be / Wrapped in their cool immunity.” He just wishes he could somehow shed the trials of duality and live replete with that “cool immunity.”

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Countée Cullen