Gregory Eiselein
Print source:J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, eds., Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), reproduced by permission.Though stylistically atypical of his verse, "O Captain! My Captain!" is one of Walt Whitman's most popular poems. It first appeared in the Saturday Press (4 November 1865) and subsequently in Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865-1866). After modestly revising it, Whitman placed it in "President Lincoln's Burial Hymn" in Passage to India (1871) and finally in the "Memories of President Lincoln" cluster in Leaves of Grass (1881).
The rhyme, meter, stanza, and refrain in "O Captain" are conventional. The poem makes deliberate use of traditional metaphors, picturing the Union as a ship and the president as its captain. Although the ship has weathered the storm and re-entered the harbor safe and victorious, the captain (like the recently assassinated Lincoln) is dead. Capturing the triumph and grief of the war's end, "O Captain" is a public poem for a mass audience, an elegy remembering a beloved president.
Intended for a large, inclusive readership, "O Captain" became the most recited and popular of Whitman's works. It was usually a requisite selection at Whitman's readings and until recently his most widely anthologized poem. Because of its acclaim at the expense of his other poems, Whitman expressed some small regret about writing "O Captain," but insisted that it had an emotional, historically necessary purpose. No longer so celebrated, "O Captain" continues to be a revealing representation of the rhetoric of despair and celebration that followed the war, and it remains Whitman's most successful attempt to reach a national audience.
I agree with Gregory Eiselein on the fact that Walt Whitman was skilled enough to thoroughly write the poem to a large audience in hope that there would be more unity and happiness between the readers (the united states).
THE FIRST AMERICAN POET:
Walt Whitman—Justice at last—A Great Poet Completes a Great Work.
~anonymous (1881)
The announcement was made some time ago that Walt Whitman was in Boston personally superintending the publication of his poems under the title of "Leaves of Grass," the name used in issuing his first thin volume, which threw all the conventional critics into spasms of laughter and disgust. But twenty years have wrought a mighty change. Whitman has steadily grown in favor in Europe and hence his own countrymen have taken him up and have gradually come to see that a great and original poet has been among them.
James R. Osgood & Co., of Boston, have just issued a volume of 382 pages containing Whitman's complete works. It is now discovered that from the beginning the poet had a purpose to which he has steadily adhered; that for thirty years he has been laboring on a great work with one aim, and that what seemed fragmentary were the parts of a great whole, the segments of a mighty circle, which the purblind public could not see or comprehend at one view.
As does the critic, I also feel that Walt Whitman was extremely hardworking and passionate towards his love of poetry. I am surprised however, that there were people who did not feel he was as great as he actually was. For people to be in spasms of laughter and disgust, there must have really been a lack of respect for poets, that which included Walt Whitman.
The rhyme, meter, stanza, and refrain in "O Captain" are conventional. The poem makes deliberate use of traditional metaphors, picturing the Union as a ship and the president as its captain. Although the ship has weathered the storm and re-entered the harbor safe and victorious, the captain (like the recently assassinated Lincoln) is dead. Capturing the triumph and grief of the war's end, "O Captain" is a public poem for a mass audience, an elegy remembering a beloved president.
Intended for a large, inclusive readership, "O Captain" became the most recited and popular of Whitman's works. It was usually a requisite selection at Whitman's readings and until recently his most widely anthologized poem. Because of its acclaim at the expense of his other poems, Whitman expressed some small regret about writing "O Captain," but insisted that it had an emotional, historically necessary purpose. No longer so celebrated, "O Captain" continues to be a revealing representation of the rhetoric of despair and celebration that followed the war, and it remains Whitman's most successful attempt to reach a national audience.
I agree with Gregory Eiselein on the fact that Walt Whitman was skilled enough to thoroughly write the poem to a large audience in hope that there would be more unity and happiness between the readers (the united states).
THE FIRST AMERICAN POET:
Walt Whitman—Justice at last—A Great Poet Completes a Great Work.
~anonymous (1881)
The announcement was made some time ago that Walt Whitman was in Boston personally superintending the publication of his poems under the title of "Leaves of Grass," the name used in issuing his first thin volume, which threw all the conventional critics into spasms of laughter and disgust. But twenty years have wrought a mighty change. Whitman has steadily grown in favor in Europe and hence his own countrymen have taken him up and have gradually come to see that a great and original poet has been among them.
James R. Osgood & Co., of Boston, have just issued a volume of 382 pages containing Whitman's complete works. It is now discovered that from the beginning the poet had a purpose to which he has steadily adhered; that for thirty years he has been laboring on a great work with one aim, and that what seemed fragmentary were the parts of a great whole, the segments of a mighty circle, which the purblind public could not see or comprehend at one view.
As does the critic, I also feel that Walt Whitman was extremely hardworking and passionate towards his love of poetry. I am surprised however, that there were people who did not feel he was as great as he actually was. For people to be in spasms of laughter and disgust, there must have really been a lack of respect for poets, that which included Walt Whitman.