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Walt Whitman's Poetry Essay

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Walt Whitman’s poetry embodies the changes taking place in America during and after the Civil War. He experiences them firsthand as a Civil War nurse. In the poems, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” and “A Child Said What is the Grass?”. Whitman talks about both population growth, and the many deaths during the Civil War. He sees life and death as a cycle, and examines life after the life of an individual. The basic meanings of Whitman’s poems are very relevant to what he was facing at the time. As a nurse in the Civil War, he saw many young, dedicated people die for what they believed in. He respected these soldiers, and felt that their deaths should have meaning. Whitman’s poems relate to his ideas that a democracy is built from individuals, and that each individual has a purpose. Although death is an inevitable, Whitman sees all lives as immortal. The legacy people leave behind when they die is something that the poet respected …show more content…

In “When the Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Whitman says, “Here, coffin that slowly passes, I give you my sprig of lilac.” The lilac in this quote represents hope, life, and rebirth; much like spring, when they bloom. The quote shows the author vows to remember and honor the fallen as individuals, much like blades of grass or a flower. In the poem “A Child Said What is the Grass,” Whitman uses the green grass as a symbol of multiplicity, using the rapid growth and reproduction of grass as a sign that many new lives have sprouted from those who have died, and that regrowth after death is possible. In both of these poems, Walt Whitman uses the seasons to remember his fallen friends; mourning their lives as new buds of spring appear. The fall and winter seasons are used as a representation of what the Civil War was like, with the absence of life in that time. The springtime is where repopulation begins to occur, and life returns to the

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