Assasination's Impact On Walt Whitman The Lincoln example essay topic

The Lincoln Assasination's Impact On Walt Whitman The Lincoln Assasination's Impact On Walt Whitman On the night of the awful tragedy an unreal action occurred in the box at the theater. Watching was the greatest man of his time in the glory of the most stupendous success story in our history. He was the idolized chief of a nation already mighty, and a symbol to all of the grandeur of a great nation. Quick death was to come on the central figure of that company – the central figure of the great and good men of the century.

The shot heard around the country would not die in a whimper. The gloom that had traversed the streets of Washington was the same feeling of vague terror and sorrow, which had spread throughout the entire country. Colonel Burnett, assigned to the investigation of the death of Lincoln, described the mood of the nation, "I cannot adequately describe, and shall never forget. To this day, I never visit that City (Washington) without some shadow of that dark time settling over my spirit' (A Lawyer Called to Serve 2000).

The people moved about the streets with bowed heads and sorrow-stricken faces. When men spoke to each other in the streets, there were tremulous tones in their voices, and a quivering of the lips, as though tears and violent expression of grief were held back only by great effort. Lincoln's death impacted Whitman because he had held Lincoln in the highest esteem similar to the soldiers, lived in the same proximity as the President, and had developed a series of works devoted directly to Lincoln. The people held Lincoln in such high esteem with a strong love.

Colonel Burnett adds "the love of the people was so strong, and so peculiarly personal and tender towards Abraham Lincoln' (A Lawyer Called to Serve 2000). This was especially true among the soldiers. All of the members of the army remembered Lincoln with a devotion and patriotic affection. The soldiers used to shout and sing "We are coming, Father Abraham!' (A Lawyer Called to Serve 2000). Burnett described the soldier's remembrance as personal and confiding sort of relationship existing between the soldier boys and "Uncle Abe'. The scene at the bedside of the dying President has been described in the Press, and as the news swept around the earth, all the children of men, in the entire civilized world, wept with those about his couch.

That deathbed scene will never be forgotten. Those involved in the military, such as Whitman, held deep admiration toward Lincoln. The unforeseen tragedy had transverse d the civilian population and had stunned the Union officers. During the Civil War Walter Whitman ministered to wounded soldiers in Union army hospitals in Washington, D.C. The soldiers had– wept like little children when told "Uncle Abe was dead' (A Lawyer Called to Serve 2000). Whitman's involvement in the Civil War had instilled in him a deep ingrained respect toward President Lincoln. The night before Lincoln's death he experienced melancholy dreams.

Lincoln states, "There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me,' he said, "then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping, and I thought I left my bed. ' (Clark, Champ 172). Whitman similarly foreshadowed the haunting dreams of the event, and the characters associated with them that night before the Assassination. Through the relationship between the dreams of Lincoln and Whitman the impact becomes clearer. In his free time, Whitman wandered the streets of the capital, occasionally seeing a weary President Abraham Lincoln. Walt Whitman draws into account his daily encounters with President, Lincoln, a man he admired.

Whitman states, "I happen to live where he passes to or from his lodgings out of town (one day while he was riding his horse) I saw the President in the face fully, as they were moving slowly and he happen'd to be directed steadily in my eye, and the expression on his mouth was one of the great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed' (Whitman 529-30). The experience of the vision of Lincoln's face was one Whitman would never forget, "I see very plainly Abraham Lincoln's dark brown face, with the deep-cut lines, the eyes always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression' (Whitman 527). The two men regularly exchanged cordial bows. The expression on Lincoln's face was the inspirational one that Whitman had always tried to allude to in his writings, "None of the artists or pictures has caught the deep, though subtle and indirect expression of this man's face yet there is something else there' (Whitman 532).

These close experiences with Lincoln sparked the inspiration of several of his works. The following four poems were written under the title Memories of President Lincoln: Lilacs in the Door yard Bloom'd, O Captain! My Captain! , Hush'd be the Camps Today, and This Dust Was Once the Man. They occurred first in Passage to India in 1871 and were grouped under this title in 1881. When Lilacs in the Door yard Bloom'd, is a great threnody that was composed in the weeks following Lincoln's assassination.

It is a tribute to President Lincoln, written with great force and subtle feeling, and was called by Swinburne "the most sweet and sonorous nocturne ever chanted in the church of the world' (Walt Whitman 2000). O Captain! My Captain! Is a poem of praise to President Lincoln, written after his death, and is the most widely known, and least characteristic poem, that Whitman ever published. Whitman compares the death of president Abraham Lincoln to the death of the captain of a ship. He is using a ship as a metaphor for the United States and the ship's captain as a metaphor for the leader of the country.

This poem reflected the way most people in the North felt when Lincoln died. Utilizing the regular structure, meter and rhyme displayed here was very uncomfortable for him, as his native style was "free verse'. He often expressed irritation (in a humorous way) that this poem succeeded so much and his other poems had not. "I'm almost sorry I ever wrote the poem' (Walt Whitman 2000), he once said, but I am sure he was grinning when he said it.

Hush'd be the Camps Today! This outstanding poem reflects, from the soldier's point of view, the grief they felt over the death of the President. This Dust Was Once the Man, his four-line poem, is one of the most powerful poems in American poetry Walt Whitman found one of his highest ideals in President Lincoln. Whitman's poem", (1865) is an excellent poem, and one of the finest ever written about Lincoln. The images are good and the rhythm is typical of Whitman's use of free verse' (Unit Eight: The Flowering of New England 1999).

Free verse is ' free' because it lacks regular meter and line length, but this places greater emphasis upon rhythm, just like a powerful speech. Whitman tried to approximate the natural sounds of common speech in his poetry, carefully varying the length of his lines according to his intended emphasis. Many other writers do not like this style, but it has become a very important style of American poetry, and Robert Frost compared it to "playing tennis without a net' (Woodress 284). Ezra Pond however, considered Whitman to be an American Poet among all other American poets. Pound comments, "He is genius because he has vision of what he is and of his function.

He knows that he is a beginning and not a classically finished work' (Woodress 191). Walt Whitman is one of the most dramatic, and certainly one of the clearest, imagist's in literature. His work is characterized by his commitment to the ideas of the innate worth of the individual and of democracy as the bastion of freedom. Bill Massey commends Whitman, "His break with traditional poetic ideas and style impressed significant influence on American thought and literature' (Walt Whitman 2000). Clearly history can affect Literature.

To Whitman, Lincoln equaled American democracy. "A Lawyer / Soldier Called to Serve. ' Testimony of General Henry L. Burnett in the Trail of Mr. John Wilks. 28 Feb. 2000. Clark, Champ, and the Editors of Time-Life Books.

The Civil War: Assassination, Death of the President. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1987. DeWan, George. "The Paumanok Poet. ' Newsday Mar. 1998: A 18+. SIRS Knowledge Source: Researcher.

28 Feb. 2000. Ervin, Timothy P. "Unit Eight: The Flowering of New England: New Directions. ' Chapter Outline. History of American History. 30 Apr. 1999.3 Apr. 2000... Massey, Bill.

"Walt Whitman. ' Literature and Poetry Page. 28 Feb. 2000... Whitman, Walt.

The Portable Walt Whitman. Doren, Mark Van. New York: The Viking Press, 1945. Woodress, James. Critical Essays on Walt Whitman. Boston: G.K. Hall and Co., 1983.