“O Captain! My Captain!” written by Walt Whitman is a brief poem about the murder of the sixteenth president of the United State, Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Whitman witnessed one of his idols win one of the most significant wars in history that caused many casualties and fatalities; The Civil War. Such an event caused for celebration despite the amount of blood shed, however, a few days after the war ended the beloved president was assassinated. Abraham Lincoln could no longer see the pride and joy the nation felt thanks to his leadership. Hundreds of thousands of people were now left alone with no leader to guide them into the victorious night. Stepping out if his comfort zone Walt Whitman wrote “O Captain! My Captain!” in a traditional style,
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It all began when the northerners took a stand against the south to abolish slavery. Once the north began to retaliate, Southerners became infuriated, and began their fight to secede from the Union. Brothers fought against brother, neighbors against neighbors, innocent lives were taken in a blink of an eye just for the sake of pride. This blood war would continue for four years until Robert E Lee would surrender to the north. An estimate of six hundred and twenty four thousand lives were lost (History Today). In that pile of casualties lied President Abraham Lincoln. Although he did not die in the actual war himself, he died fighting for the war. The description of Mr. Lincoln lying cold on the floor of the theater can be found in lines seventeen and eighteen of the poem. Whitman wrote “ My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or …show more content…
According to Dictionary.com, a free verse is poetry that does not have a rhyme or regular meter. This poem is not written in a free verse poem, like Whitman is known for. This poem is written in a rhyme scheme of AABBCDED. This means that the last letter of each line may rhyme with another word in the following line. The rhyme scheme, red, head, and dead, gives the reader a clear and detailed enough picture of how the president died .Whitman is also extra particular in this poem ending each stanza with “fallen cold and dead. We can see that the message Mr. Whitman was trying to express was grief for the loss of their true captain through this time. The way this is expressed is in how each line of the poem is structure. The first four lines of each stanza are longer than the last four lines. The way Whitman composed this poem was very respectful to our dead president. If you were to read this poem slowly the rhythm of this poem sounds like a drummer
It all began when the northerners took a stand against the south to abolish slavery. Once the north began to retaliate, Southerners became infuriated, and began their fight to secede from the Union. Brothers fought against brother, neighbors against neighbors, innocent lives were taken in a blink of an eye just for the sake of pride. This blood war would continue for four years until Robert E Lee would surrender to the north. An estimate of six hundred and twenty four thousand lives were lost (History Today). In that pile of casualties lied President Abraham Lincoln. Although he did not die in the actual war himself, he died fighting for the war. The description of Mr. Lincoln lying cold on the floor of the theater can be found in lines seventeen and eighteen of the poem. Whitman wrote “ My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or …show more content…
According to Dictionary.com, a free verse is poetry that does not have a rhyme or regular meter. This poem is not written in a free verse poem, like Whitman is known for. This poem is written in a rhyme scheme of AABBCDED. This means that the last letter of each line may rhyme with another word in the following line. The rhyme scheme, red, head, and dead, gives the reader a clear and detailed enough picture of how the president died .Whitman is also extra particular in this poem ending each stanza with “fallen cold and dead. We can see that the message Mr. Whitman was trying to express was grief for the loss of their true captain through this time. The way this is expressed is in how each line of the poem is structure. The first four lines of each stanza are longer than the last four lines. The way Whitman composed this poem was very respectful to our dead president. If you were to read this poem slowly the rhythm of this poem sounds like a drummer