Death and Regeneration in Walt Whitman's Poem, When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd

The poem “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime” is a poem about a women who has lost her husband of thirty five years. Williams writes in the voice of a grieving woman instead of in his own voice. Now that her husband has died, the widow cannot find joy in her yard that she used to love. The widow may even be considering suicide. Williams, writing in free verse, writes a metaphor comparing the grief of a widow to her blooming yard in the springtime setting a tone of great sadness for the widow.

Robert Frost and William Shakespeare have been celebrated by many people because of their ability to express themselves through the written word. Here we are years after their deaths analyzing these fascinating poems about life and death. It’s clear they had similar thoughts about this subject at the time of these writings, even though their characters could not have been more opposite. For both poets, life is too

Walt Whitman’s essay, Death of Abraham Lincoln, explains what Lincoln brought to our nation through his life and what he left behind through his death. Whitman observes Lincoln from afar, noticing the reactions a crowd has to his presence. He expresses the importance of first impressions through the awkward silence of the streets and crowds when Lincoln walks out of his unprepossessing carriage on his way to the Astor House prior to his inauguration. Lincoln’s presence took over the moment unlike any figure had before. On the day of April 14, 1865, Whitman recalls his sight of beautiful lilacs at the time of the harrowing event and how this alluring flower became a symbol for him. The lilacs represented the great tragedy on that spring day with their sight or even just with the presence of their soft scent. Whitman was extremely inspired by both the life and death of Abraham Lincoln. Still to this day, Lincoln is known as one of the greatest Presidents to exist in our country and Whitman portrays him as more important than any other heroic figure in our past. In comparison, President Warren G. Harding is known as one of the worst presidents who corrupted our nation. Unlike Lincoln, who is responsible for the emancipation of three million slaves and known as the savior of our union, President Harding was involved in scandals across the nation and is known for his shady presidency. Although Lincoln’s death brought hardship and grief to our country, Harding’s death may

To begin with, both Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson spoke about not only a person dying, but the people who were left to live through that person’s

Also included in the poem is the image of a young child being embraced by their elders. This shows the gap in life and the aging process that we go through. When we are young we are carefree, but as we age we hold on to the ones we love because of the knowledge that we will one day have to make our departure. Out of this idea of death, Whitman shows that this is a natural part of life and

Whitman also describes death in a very delicate manner, which allows the reader to feel that death is in a way, good. For instance, he describes the soldiers as noisy in war, but when they die, there is silence. Silence resembles death, yet it's not a negative way of expressing it. As the poet encounters with more memories of suffering, he calls to death: "Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!/ In mercy come quickly" (lines 44-45). He believes death will alleviate the pains and that it is good. Another delicate way of describing death, and an excellent choice of words, is when he says he recalls "the experience (as) sweet and sad" (line 63) These young soldiers have so much life ahead of them and they are dying, this makes it 'sad'. Yet since they are suffering so much, it's 'sweet' that they die. In this particular poem, Whitman portrays an attitude of positive welcoming of death.

He seems to suggest here that grief is but an illusion, because man is incapable of touching the human soul. Emerson continued with, “Grief too will make us idealists. In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate, - no more. I cannot get it nearer to me.” Now, Emerson reveals his inspiration for writing Experience. With the death of his son, Emerson had suffered the fourth major loss in his family, which had been long plagued by tuberculosis. His first wife died of the disease and had claimed the lives of his two beloved brothers. Emerson was no stranger to grief, and the more he tried to psychoanalyze it, the emptier he felt. After sustaining so much loss, one must steel oneself from any further blows.

James McPherson, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain all state and indicate the importance of freedom, independence, and individualism throughout all the excerpts. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Satirical novel, 1884, Huck exposes the flows of white society in the Antebellum south. Twain’s novel discusses racism, slavery, and hypocrisy of “civilized society” is to show how they are doing wrong to individuals. Walt Whitman's free verse poem “Song of Myself”, Leaves of Grass in 1855 illustrates when someone passes away life is reincarnated and becomes something better such as grass, air, or soil. Whitman’s purpose for composing this was to inform that death is a forturate thing and not something to fear for. James McPherson,

During the course of his career Walt Whitman struggled with his career trajectory. While he was an exceptional writer, his work was never fully appreciated until his death. Walt Whitman’s trial and tribulations led him to write of his experiences such as in “The Mississippi at Midnight,” which describes how the river captured his attention. His observations created a beautiful piece of literature that encompasses the river. One of the verses that reinforces his writing style is “Oh tireless waters! Like Life’s quick dream onward and onward even hurrying like death in this midnight hour you seem, life in your chill drops greedily burying”( Whitman, The Mississippi), stating that life is too short and that it can be extinguished ever so quickly. Being captivated by the Mississippi river,

There are many themes present in “song of myself”, but three main themes stood out to me more than any other themes. The themes are the beautification of death, knowledge, and the connection between people and things. The beautification of death, knowledge, and the connection between people and things is apparent throughout the poem.” The poem that would come to bear the title "Song of Myself," the major poem of the original 1855 edition, contains several key passages relating to death, including sections 5 and 6, which offer another example of a scene where ecstatic sexual engagement leads to and is linked with a visionary spiritual transcendence of death.” I put this quote from “"Restless Explorations": Whitman's Evolving Spiritual Vision in Leaves of Grass” to support the claim of death being romanticized and repeated throughout the poem.

Poems are like snowflakes. While no two are the same, they all have common structures and themes. One prevalent theme in poetry is that of death, which is present in both “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Dickinson perceives death as a gentleman, while Frost perceives death as loneliness, which provides insight on how the time periods of the poems, the genders of the authors, and the authors’ personal experiences influence literature.

In Walt Whitman’s collection of Leaves of Grass, he includes many poems that are a compilation of his musings and thoughts. One thing that he does throughout his collection is that he creates goals through each poem to get different messages across. Some of his common messages, or underlying themes, are the Self, democracy, and the individual, but an interesting common theme found scattered throughout Leaves of Grass is the cycle of life and death, especially in comparison to the United States, the Civil War, and life itself. In “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” does such thing. Published in 1865, the pastoral elegy was written after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. This is the best way that Walt Whitman mourns a beloved public figure in his own modern world, and also the way he copes with the natural world. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” best captures Whitman’s notion what it means to be human: the common understanding of the never-ending cycle of life and death through the form of the elegy, the symbol of the lilac, and the personification of death.

People would not want to hear that their loved ones merely gave up and died passively. This poem in itself is a celebration of life, the poem is not only about death but it is an affirmation of life. To further emphasise the points being made Dylan Thomas utilises a wide range of literary devices. Parallelism is used from lines seven to fifteen to juxtapose the different attitudes of the so called “genres” of men at their death. This is used to outline that if you continuously lead one set type of lifestyle whether it is as a “wild man”, a “grave man” or a “good man” you will not be satisfied when your time comes to die. The only true way to be satisfied is to live a life of balance; only with a good contrast can you be at peace.

The epiphany surrounding the word "death" seems appropriate, for in other poems of Whitman's we have seen death described as the ultimate tool for democracy and sympathy. Here death is shown to be the one lesson a child must learn, whether from nature or from an elder. Only the realization of death can lead to emotional and artistic

the theme of death. The speaker of the poems talks about the loss of a