Walt+Whitman

="from Song of Myself, Numbers 1,10, 33": how do the sound effects in the last stanza (lines 17-22) of "from 33 I understand the large hearts of heroes" reinforce the brubality of its subject matter?=

[|Teaching the Poems of Walt Whitman] [|Walt Whitman Archive] [|Ed Portal - Walt Whitman] [|Song of Myself - analysis] [|Voc] [|Walt Whitman study leads] [|Interactive Literature] [|Ulysses - interactive quiz] [| I Hear America Singing], by Walt Whitman //[| from]// [| Song of Myself, 10], by Walt Whitman //[| from]//[| Song of Myself, 33], by Walt Whitman //[| from]//[| Song of Myself, 52], by Walt Whitman [| A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim], by Walt Whitman media type="youtube" key="h9QL2o6O7s8" height="360" width="640"
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=O Captain, My Captain=


 * __O__** **__Captain__****__! My Captain!__**

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths - for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

Walt Whitman's poem "O Captain! My Captain!" was written a few months after the end of the American Civil War in 1865. It is a poem that can only be properly understood when the historical background is known. The imagery makes clear that Whitman's speaker is a sailor, and the poem conceivably could be read as the lament of an anonymous seaman for his "fallen" captain. But to read it this way would be to make too little of its significance. This becomes evident once we are aware that the year is 1865, that the assertion in the opening line, "our fearful trip is done," refers to the end of the long Civil War, and that the captain represents Abraham Lincoln, assinated on Good Friday of 1865. These historical facts impose certain constraints on how the poem and its allusions are to be understood. The ship in question becomes metaphorically a Ship of State, which Lincoln, as captain, has guided finally to port. The "prize" line two, peace and national unity, has been won; the nation is exultant; but Lincoln lies "cold and dead." The sailor who speaks, and who seems identifiable with Whitman himself, has weathered the worst with his captain, only to find himself in despair, incapable of drawing himself away from the fallen body.

1Who in "Dead Poets' Society" associates himself with "Captain"?

2 Why do you think he does this and what, if any, links can you see between him and Lincoln?

3 Todd is perhaps most changed by the end of "Dead Poets' Society". a) In what ways has he changed?

b) How has he weathered a storm but lost his captain? c) Can you see him representing a Walt Whitman/Sailor type character? Explain.

4 a) What character dies in "Dead Poets' Society"? 4 b) In what ways has he, like Lincoln, died but still "seized the day" (Carpe Deum).

5 **Walt Whitman** is referred to throughout the film. Read this information about him and try to decide why John Keating might have found him a man to admire.

Whitman, Walt (1819-92), American poet, whose work boldly asserts the worth of the individual and the oneness of all humanity. His defiant break with traditional poetic concerns and style exerted a major influence on American thought and literature.

Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, near Huntington, New York, the second of a family of nine children. His father was a carpenter; the poet had a particularly close relationship with his mother. When he was four years old, his family moved to Brooklyn, where he attended public school for six years before being apprenticed to a printer. Two years later he went to New York City to work in printing shops, but returned to Long Island in 1835 and taught in country schools. In 1838-39 he edited a newspaper, the Long-Islander, at Huntington; becoming bored, he went back to New York City to work as a printer and journalist. There he enjoyed the theater, the opera, and—always an omnivorous reader—used the libraries. He wrote unoriginal poems and stories for popular magazines and made political speeches, for which Tammany Hall Democrats rewarded him with the editorship of various short-lived newspapers. For two years he edited the influential Brooklyn Eagle, but he lost his position for supporting the Free-Soil party. After a brief sojourn in New Orleans, Louisiana, he returned to Brooklyn, where he tried to start a Free-Soil newspaper. After several years spent at various jobs, including building houses, he began writing a new kind of poetry and thereafter neglected business.

In 1855 Whitman issued the first of many editions of Leaves of Grass, a volume of poetry in a new kind of versification, far different from his sentimental rhymed verse of the 1840s. Because he immodestly praised the human body and glorified the senses, Whitman was forced to publish the book at his own expense, setting some of the type himself. His name did not appear on the title page, but the engraved frontispiece portrait shows him posed, arms akimbo, in shirt sleeves, hat cocked at a rakish angle. In a long preface he announced a new democratic literature, “commensurate with a people,” simple and unconquerable, written by a new kind of poet, who was affectionate, brawny, and heroic, and who would lead by the force of his magnetic personality.

Whitman spent the rest of his life striving to become that poet. The 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass contained 12 untitled poems, written in long cadenced lines that resemble the unrhymed verse of the King James Version of the Bible. The best and longest, later entitled “Song of Myself,” was a vision of a symbolic “I” enraptured by the senses, vicariously embracing all people and places from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. No other poem in the first edition has the power of this poem, although “The Sleepers,” another visionary flight, symbolizing life, death, and rebirth, comes nearest.

Drum-Taps (1865, later added to the 1867 edition of Leaves) reflects Whitman's deepening awareness of the significance of the American Civil War and the hope for reconciliation between North and South; Sequel (1866) to Drum-Taps contains “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,” the great elegy for Abraham Lincoln, and his most popular work, “O Captain! My Captain!”

During the Civil War Whitman ministered to wounded soldiers in Union army hospitals in Washington, D.C. He remained there, working as a government clerk, until 1873, when he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. He then went to live with his brother George (1829-1901) in Camden, New Jersey, until 1884, when he bought his own house. He lived there, writing and revising Leaves of Grass, despite failing health, until his death on March 26, 1892. 6

Read this poem that is referred to in the film by John Keating. Why is this poem referred to in the film?

O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
 * O Me! O Life!**

Of the endless trains of faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer That you are here - that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

7 Keating wants his students to make their lives "extraordinary". What do you think he means by that exactly? 8 Read this section (52) of Whitman's poem:
 * Song of Myself**

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. What links can you make with the film from this extract? 9 Read these poems. The first is by Walt Whitman and the second Robert Frost. **A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest,** **and the Road Unknown** A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown

A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,

Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,

Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,

We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building,

'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital,

Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made,

Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,

And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and clouds of smoke,

By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some in the pews laid down,

At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen),

I stanch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily,)

Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all,

Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, some of them dead,

Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, the odor of blood,

The crowd, o the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill'd,

Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating,

An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls,

The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of torches,

These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor,

Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in;

But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile he gives he me,

Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,

Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,

The unknown road still marching.