Student Essay on Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman

Summary:   The war and the death of Abraham Lincoln - Explanations on the impact it had on Walt Whitman.

Walt WhitmanWalt Whitman was considered one of the greatest 19th century poet. His poetry was mainly idealistic and romantic. He rejected the normal rhythm of writing poetry and wrote in free verse for the common man. He didn't care what others thought of him and his work. He wanted to be the American voice.

Whitman loved his country and everything about it and was looked as the republican poet. In his greatest accomplishment, Leaves of Grass, he wrote mostly about his love for his country. But the world was not ready for Whitman's view of the human body and spirit, and his work was ignored and ridiculed. Whitman lived during the time of the Civil War. He saw what human suffering was and how it affected everyone. This experience prompt him to become a civil war nurse. During this time, he met Abraham Lincoln, whom he became good friends with. When Lincoln was assassinated, he was devastated. This event moved him so much that he wanted to show the pain he felt inside through his poems. From then on, his poetry was mainly of the human soul and death.

In Leaves of Grass, he dedicated one section of the book to Abraham Lincoln, titled Memories of President Lincoln. One poem, O' Captain, my captain was written in recollection of Lincoln's death. In this poem, he calls Lincoln his "father". This was to show that Lincoln wasn't just a president but was the father of the United States of America. This poem showed his love for a American leader.

In When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, it was written to express his grief and anguish caused by Lincoln's assassination. Whitman writes that every spring, when the lilacs bloom, it will remind him of Lincoln and the return of life. In this poem, He uses symbolism to describe his feelings loss, love and consolation. "O great star disappeared - O the black murk that hides the star!". Whitman uses the star as the symbol for Lincoln and that nationalism has fallen. "O wild and loose to my soul - O wondrous singer" The gray-brown bird's song consoles him and lifts his soul. The gray-brown bird indicates natures sympathy towards him. "Nor for you alone, for one alone, Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring". Whitman doesn't just mourn for Lincoln's death but for all those who lost their lives fighting in the civil war. "And the streets how their throbbing throbb'd, and the cities pent-lo, then and there" .... "Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail." As everyone is getting on with their lives, Whitman senses that death is near. Even though he tries to run and tries to hide from it, he can't. Death is inevitable and there is no use in trying to run from it. The gray-brown bird sings Whitman another song of death and he sees a vision of corpses and debris caused by the war as well as the suffering of the families. He later conceives that death is bliss and that there is consolation even after death.

Although his work was unnoticed in his time, his work is now considered one of the best there is. His work is probably considered an influence on the work of other American writers. I look at Walt Whitman as the poet of life, love, and death and the poet of sympathy. And even though Whitman's poetry is not easy to apprehend, it is still a great piece of historical art. I don't understand his poetry sometimes, but poetry is not something that you can get from reading it once.