Symbolism In Walt Whitman's 'O Captain ! My Captain'

First of all, “O Captain, My Captain” uses extended metaphors, while “Shiloh: A Requiem” does not. Walt Whitman uses many extended metaphors, such as “Captain” referring to Abraham Lincoln, and “fearful trip” meaning the Civil War. This shows how “O Captain, My Captain” uses extended metaphors to give the poem a deeper meaning than it seems. Meanwhile, Herman Melville does not use extended metaphors in his poem. Additionally, “Shiloh: A Requiem” uses personification to convey the mood, and “O Captain, My Captain” does not. For example, Herman Melville uses the phrase “The church so lone” to help convey the mood. This shows personification because loneliness is an emotion, and an inanimate object cannot feel emotions. However, “O Captain, My Captain” does not use personification in the poem. In conclusion, this shows that the two authors use unique means to get their messages

How does Walt Whitman use figurative language in O Captain! My Captain! to impact the readers. One of the first examples of figurative language in O Captain! my Captain! is an allusion. Two allusions are located on the second line in the first stanza, it says “The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,”. Whitman's uses of allusions are easier to understand if you know history because the ship represents the nation and the prize was the win of the Civil War. Walt Whitman used allusions because if they are constructed well then, the reader may feel more apart of the story and it can capture their attention to keep them interested. Another example of figurative language in the poem is imagery. One use of imagery I found was

Although this is a short poem, there are so many different meanings that can come from the piece. With different literary poetic devices such as similes, imagery, and symbolism different people take away different things from the poem. One of my classmates saw it as an extended metaphor after searching for a deeper connection with the author. After some research on the author, we came to learn that the

Whitman takes the idea of using parts of nature as unique symbols and transfers this idea into humanity. More specifically, Whitman is able to go beyond Emerson's idea of nature as a symbol and make humans symbols. Most obvious is the way that Whitman uses himself as a symbol of all of humanity. He sees the ideas of humanity coming from him and states, "Through me many long dumb voices…Through me forbidden voices,"(Whitman Section 24 Line 12 & 20). He says that he is a "kosmos" - or he is a universe,

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, one of Walt Whitman’s most popular poems was written to show his private mourning over President Lincoln’s death, in a public way. Whitman realizes his mourning is not his alone, it is a national grief, and so he tries to vocalize his in a way that can be shared by everyone; he did so by writing this poem (Rollyson). Whitman, “drawn to the idea of a president that would emerge from the frontier west,” admired Lincoln more than most (Kreidler). His devastation by the loss of President Lincoln, coming from his “belief[s] and fervent admiration,” can be seen in When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom’s, but more notably in his most popular work, O Captain! My Captain! (Kreidler). In writing, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d Whitman showed his true colors and took a highly personal note into his poetry, as well as incorporated symbols to describe the depth his and the nation’s desolation. In "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom," Whitman uses symbols to express the nations, as well as his own, deep private mourning over President Lincoln’s death in a public way.

He tells us how in the winter, his father would be up before everyone else to warm up the house so that they wouldn’t be so cold when they got out of bed. Robert was hesitant to come out of his room because he was afraid of the chronic angers of the house which is referring to how his foster parents always fought. Their fighting had always deeply troubled him. Hayden wrote “Frederick Douglas” because his story was a source of inspiration to him. The poem is about the struggles of the African Americans during the age of slavery and how they fought through it and how people like Frederick Douglas will be remembered as nothing more than a fighter and a symbol to represent how far the black population has come and how their fight is not yet over. The “Middle Passage” is about the Africans journey to America where they will be sold into slavery and how tragic it was. It explains in detail how inhuman and terrible it was. It tells how many of the Africans died at sea, how disease ran rampant due no sanitation and tight quarters, just in general how horrible the whole ordeal was. And that was just the

Captain Lincoln Steers the Ship to victory. “Where on the deck my captain lies Fallen cold and dead.”(7-8) This quote from the story refers to the assassination of President Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was President during the Civil War, and is considered to be one of the greatest presidents of all time. President Lincoln was assassinated on April 14,1865 and was in a coma for 9 hours before he died. With the death of the President the nation lost it’s most important man and a great father and husband. The elegy “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman is an extended metaphor about President Lincoln’s presidency because it compares Lincoln to a ships captain, the Union

Often times people use poetry to tell a story, or show how they feel about a topic. The poet Walt Whitman does this in his Poem “Oh Captain! My Captain!”. This poem tells the story of one of Whitman’s idol’s legacy and death. Walt Whitman portrays American Romanticism through “Oh Captain! My Captain!” to describe Abraham Lincoln’s life.

Walt Whitman was a revolutionary poet who let his emotions run free through his poetry. Whitman was never afraid to express himself no matter how inappropriate or offensive his emotions might have seemed at the time. This is why Whitman's poem still echo that same sentiment and emotion today almost as loudly as when the drums were first tapped.

Walt Whitman was an American poet whose free verse brought a new style and uniqueness to American poetry. “Free verse is poetry organized according to the cadences of speech and image patterns rather than according to a regular metrical scheme. The meter is irregular and its rhythms are based on patterned elements such as sounds, words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs, rather than on the traditional units of metrical feet” (“Free Verse Encyclopedia” 1). You can see his free verse style through his literary works such as “Leaves of Grass” and “Song of Myself”.

Whitman begins by creating a contradictory image of himself. On one hand he relays an egotistical representation by alluding that he is the center of the universe, "a kosmos, of Manhattan the son," almost a deistic type of character. Whitman also describes himself as not being above any one person, woman or man, an obvious contradiction to his previous representation. His God-like persona is depicted in human terms, physical qualities that all humans possess. Whitman creates this contradiction to show his belief that he is everything, but is only this way because everything is a part of him. He represents himself as part of a whole&emdash;nature, mankind, and the universe are all a part of him. By being everything in nature and nature being a part of him, Whitman has the power to become the voice of nature as a whole. He speaks for nature and mankind when they do not possess the power to do so. Whitman is the voice of all.

America experienced profound changes during the mid 1800’s. New technologies and ideas helped the nation grow, while the Civil War ripped the nation apart. During this tumultuous period, two great American writers captured their ideas in poetry. Their poems give us insight into the time period, as well as universal insight about life. Although polar opposites in personality, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman created similar poetry. Dickinson’s “Hope is a Thing with Feathers” and Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” share many qualities.

“O Captain! My Captain!” is one of the most popular poems ever written by Walt Whitman. Upon the initial reading of this poem, one may perceive the poem to be about a loyal captain who leads his crew on a treacherous, but successful, voyage which ends in devastation. If interpreted literally this is the poem’s only meaning, but for those who look further there is an underlying story behind the words of Whitman. Whitman uses multiple literary elements throughout this poem in order to unmask the story of Abraham Lincoln’s journey and ultimate death as a result of the Civil War and his fight to end slavery.

Before O Captain! My Captain!, Whitman was already a profound poet. His works garnished respect among critics; a defining standard was his embracement of free-verse. Free-verse is a literary device that could be defined as poetry that is free from limitations. These limitations include, but are not limited to regular meter, rhythm, and rhyme. Whitman broke away from free verse with “O Captain! My Captain!”, but with reasonable purpose. Whitman critic Ezra Greenspan suggests that the poem suggested that Whitman “knew very well how to please conventional taste”("Explanation of: 'O Captain! My Captain!'). The death of Lincoln was not only a blow to Whitman, but a blow the the psyche of a recovering nation. Purposefully using a simple rhyme scheme, Whitman opened up a perspective on the tragic loss to a wider, and less poetic audience. This decision led to the widespread adoption and embracement of the poem, with school children and adults alike memorizing Whitman’s words in honor of their befallen captain. This was to the dismay of Whitman, who often stated that he wished he never published the poem, opposed the chase of popularity. However, his choice to turn away from his free-verse manners is what propelled the poem to its position of respect in the public sphere. The quality of the Whitman’s writing does not

The poem starts out with the narrator telling the captain of the ship that the crew has accomplished their goal, they have won a battle at sea. The ship and crew is riding the waves back to the port, where he can already hear bells and people celebrating their victory. Then he relates the horrible news to the reader, his captain is dead, and cannot celebrate