![]() While “O Captain” was firmly rooted in the present and gestured to the past, “Lilacs” vaulted American poetry toward the future, creating a decisive break-both linguistically and in its cast of mind-with the time in which he wrote. It is a sign of Whitman’s creativity that he could produce a well-worked piece of Victorian sentimentality like “O Captain” while also writing such a radically new work on the same subject as his second mourning poem, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” What is absent is the cause of his death, but the readers would fill in that stylistic blank for themselves: with Lincoln assassinated, the public gasped at the tragic irony that he had perished at the very moment of his triumph. It was conventional to refer to the Union as a ship- the “ship of state”-and Lincoln as a captain would also require no explanation. ![]() ![]() It jogs along nicely with its short end-rhymes (done/won, red/dead), setting up a rhythm between the momentum of the ship coming into port and the captain lying (inexplicably) dead. “O Captain, My Captain” was rooted in the conventional vocabulary and form of mid-nineteenth-century Anglo-American poetry. While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring Īnd it continues in a similar vein through the last stanza, which begins, “My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,/My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will.” The poem became a huge hit for Whitman, and he would usually recite it at the conclusion of his public lecture “The Death of Lincoln.” So popular was the poem that Whitman grew weary of it, not just because of repetition but also probably because he felt limited by the style in which it was written. The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, One, “O Captain, My Captain,” is a fine piece of Victorian sentimentality, much anthologized and much recited on patriotic occasions: O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, Walt Whitman wrote two memorial poems about the death of Abraham Lincoln. Pearsall / Albumen silver print, 1872 | National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution gift of Mr.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |