The end of the Civil War was supposedly a moment of rejoicing for the American populace, instead, it became an event of mourning. Slowly and gradually, he realizes that the change is permanent and life must go, regardless. At the start of the poem, the speaker attempts to come to reality as he observes his dead captain on the deck. The speaker’s coming to terms with the death of his fallen comrade is the focal point of the poem at hand. ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ by Walt Whitman is a heart-touching elegy on the death of the American President Abraham Lincoln. The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,įrom fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills,įor you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding,įor you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring 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, O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, As a result, he has recorded the events, moods, and spirit of the time magnificently. Speaking in the language of ordinary men, Walt Whitman aspired to become the voice of the nation, speaking on the behest of the American population at the time. On the other hand, Walt Whitman uses similar poetic devices like that of William Wordsworth and Dante Alighieri. He was the new-age poet, poised with breaking away from the shackles of established poetic practices and forming new ones just as America is created for a different purpose, tearing away from the yoke of colonialism and steering clear of undermining the proletariat class.
WIKISOURCE O CAPTIN MY CAPTIN FULL
Whitman also once envisioned Lincoln as an archangel captain and reportedly dreamed the night before the assassination about a ship entering a harbor under full sail.Walt Whitman’s masterpiece, ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ moves with a sheer melancholic tone throughout its entirety. I'm almost sorry I ever wrote the poem" though it did have "certain emotional immediate reasons for being." One of these was the centrality of the Civil War to Whitman's personal and poetic life and his perception of the war as a reflection of the nation on trial. He once told his friend Horace Traubel (1858-1919), "Damn My Captain. Whitman's lecture on Lincoln was much in demand during the poet's old age, and in the 1880s he usually included a recitation of "O Captain." He gave the lecture and recitation almost annually in the 1880s-four times in 1886. 32 "Riverside Literature Series"-Somehow you have got a couple of bad perversions in "O Captain," & I send you a corrected sheet." The editors apparently erred by picking up earlier versions of punctuation and whole lines, which the poet had revised in 1871 and now repudiated: "Leave you not the little spot" in the first stanza was supposed to be "O the bleeding drops of red." In the second stanza, Whitman corrects "This arm I push beneath you" to "This arm beneath your head." In the final stanza, the editors quoted, "But the ship, the ship is anchored safe, its voyage safe and done" whereas it should have read, "The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done." 32, Whitman spotted some errors, and sent the publishers this corrected sheet with the following note written on the verso, dated 9 February 1888, from Camden, New Jersey.
WIKISOURCE O CAPTIN MY CAPTIN SERIES
In one such anthology, Riverside Literature Series No. It quickly became his single most popular poem, much to his consternation, and it was the only one of his poems in his compendium Leaves of Grass to be widely reprinted and anthologized during his lifetime. Whitman revised the poem in 1866 and again in 1871. A rare example of his rhymed, rhythmically regular verse, the poem was published in the Saturday Press to immediate acclaim and was included in the poet's Sequel to Drum-Taps also published that year. Inspired by the death of President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), Walt Whitman (1819-1892) wrote his famous dirge "O Captain! My Captain!" in 1865. Reproduction number: A83 (color slide of letter) A84 (color slide of poem reprint) LC-MSS-77909-1 (B&W negative of poem reprint) Letter and corrected reprint of Walt Whitman's "O Captain, My Captain" with comments by author, 9 February 1888.
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