SPECIMEN TWO
Specimen Two
Shahzada Yaqoot
Eng-360
February 12, 2023.
John Lowery
An Analysis of "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"
Walt Whitman was an accomplished American Poet (1819-1892) who wrote "When Lilacs last n the Dooryard Bloom'd." in 1865. It was the year that President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. This long poem comprising 206 lines divided into 16 stanzas, was Whitman's elegy for the fallen President. In this poem, Whitman uses a lot of emotion to describe his grief while painting a picture of the mourning that the whole country experienced. His ability to describe the events that followed President's assassination in such vivid detail makes the reader engrossed in his narrative. Though the poem is sad and painful to read, its literary richness is such that one cannot leave it until the end. Whitman uses elements of nature, his personal life, his experience with the war, his desire for death, and the sacrifices of the wounded and dead soldiers. In studying this poem, readers can get an impression that Whitman had strayed from the subject, but with the play of his words; he reconnects it to the mourning events of President Lincoln's death.
The poem's lines start with the poet reminiscing about the assassination of President Lincoln on April 24, a season that coincided with the blooming of beautiful Lilacs that year. He symbolizes Lincoln as the Northern Star taken down from its specific setting. Although the poet admits that he had mourned and would continue to do so when the providence would bring the annual re-blooms of Lilac, he projects he would never forget Abraham Lincoln, whom he loved so much. Abraham Lincoln was the first president that was assassinated mercilessly. His death shocked the nation, and prolonged mourning included his dead body being carried from Washington to Illinois on a processional train. Whitman seizes this opportunity to write his condolences as a poem to pay his tribute to the dead President. In doing so, he paints a picture of how the President died an untimely death just when the spring had brought the blooms and that the fragrance of the fresh flower had enriched the atmosphere. First, the poet laments and asks the birds and other imaginary elements of nature to join him in mourning. Later, he becomes so sad that he starts to feel his death and accepts that he, too, will die someday and that death as an experience could not be avoided. In these moments, he recalls his time in the war and the pain and suffering of the wounded soldiers.
The poem was written as an elegy—a genre in which sadness and misery are described without mentioning the deceased's name. By doing so, such elegy could also be used elsewhere in a careful analysis of "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," Whitman did not mention President Lincoln by his name. Instead, he uses symbols of Lilacs, a Northern Star, a Hermit Thrush (a brown sparrow-like bird), etc., when alluding to Lincoln's persona. Here Whitman uses many fine lines to paint a mental picture of the cities, their mourning people, fields and gardens, and ever-changing scenery to describe the progression of the processional train carrying Lincoln's body. The poet then becomes a little sentimental in narrating that he doesn't have much to present at the grave of whom he loved except a branch of Lilacs and a song emanating from his heart.
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" -was considered a Pastoral elegy. The one that, besides descriptive mourning, also described the reality and death experience. Along with conveying the collective emotions of the mournful nation, it alluded to the true meaning of death, its inevitability, and how one would experience it someday. Whitman narrated this at length and called the fact of death and its ultimate experience his two companions that he cannot leave. Contemporary literary critics commended Whitman for showing maturity and soberness in this pastoral elegy. In composing this poem, Whitman deviated from the regular norms of poetry, such as maintaining rhythmic balance, fixed number of words, and strictly formatted lines, to a certain number. Instead, he fluctuated with each stanza, writing it from at least six lines to as many as 25. The subject poem is said to be rewritten and refined repeatedly by Whitman, and its stanzas were also rearranged. The poem's rich text and composition require a deliberate effort to read and understand it. Its diction, heavy vocabulary and free-form writing can confuse a casual reader. However, when perused attentively, it reveals that the poem is a Pastoral elegy written for President Lincoln in sympathy for his assassination.
Pastoral elegy employs a lot of imaginative scenarios, and it plays with the people's emotions to make them feel the intensity of the grief and then heal and restore them by instilling hope. When applied politically, it helps the nation to come out of desperation and sorry to emanate from a national tragedy. Pastoral elegy also projects the death experience and credits deceased people for their positive and worthy aspects of life. Pastoral elegies often display processions, hearse decoration, grave beautification, and floral coverings in seasonal flowers. In that respect, the Lilacs were in prominence at Lincoln's funeral, and the poet, knowing this fact, repeatedly mentioned the Lilacs.
Whitmans applied a myriad of writing techniques in his poetry. For example, he used parallelism he gets from his study of the King James Bible. But he did not use metered rhyme to end his sentences in Lincoln's elegy. Instead, used it at mid-sentence pauses. This poem represents his free-form-verse writing, which he complements by using refined diction, appropriate vocabulary, and words relevant to a subject and occasion. It seems he wrote these verses under the influence of his heartfelt sorrow and not literary rationale. The poem is a poet's imagination. He likely never left his home to see the processional train and the states and cities it crossed. Yet Whitman paints a beautiful picture of the hills and meadows, gardens and the fields, streets and buildings, and the people in their mourning veils waiting to pay homage to their beloved President. He was perhaps never there at his burial place to adorn the President's chamber with his song or to lay the only present he could bring to him- the Lilac sprig.
Whitman was an opportunist too. When he learned that Peter Eckler, a Brooklyn printer, was publishing Witman's 43 poems, the "Drum-Taps, within weeks of President Lincoln's assassination, Whitman made him delay the publication so that he could include an improvised poem "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day." At another time, when he returned to Washington, he contracted with Gibson Brothers to publish 18 of his poems pertinent to Lincoln's assassination. This publication included "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" and "O Captain! My Captain." The following verses from this poem depicts what Whitman would say.
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.
He titled the publication a sequel to the "Drum-Taps."
Whitman's poems are indeed a literary treasure that is enriching for the readers. "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a verified pastoral elegy because it contains all features of this genre. Pastoral elegy references death, funeral processions, and mourning of individuals and society. It touches on grief, anger, and advice, implying consolation and emotional healing. Whitman also used techniques like intelligent repetitions to emphasize his ideas or comments. This method allows the poet to go on a little rabbit trail and then return to the subject without losing the audience's attention. In this regard, the audience can fathom well and would have no trouble resuming from where they last left. Whitman's literary contributions to American literature are commendable and a great source of learning the techniques of writing poetry in general, and the elegy in particular.
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