Walt Whitman 高等教育出版社 美国文学选读课件.pptVIP

Walt Whitman Walt Whitman Walt Whitman Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman Walt Whitman The Civil War 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: O Captain! My Captain! Whitman wrote poetry in praise of Abraham Lincoln “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (an elegy written after Lincoln’s assassination). “O Captain! My Captain!” memorializes Lincoln’s passing as the death of a great man and the death of the era he dominated. It was used to great effect in Dead Poets’ Society. Understanding the Poem In this poem, the “Captain” is a substitute for Abraham Lincoln, and the “ship” is the United States of America. “The fearful trip” is the Civil War, which had ended just prior to Lincoln’s assassination. The ship is returning home to cheering crowds having won “the prize” of victory, just as the Union, led by Lincoln, had returned victorious from the Civil War. The poem expresses the author’s grief and horror at the death of his leader. It also shows the celebration of the Union supporters over their victory in the Civil War. Whitman’s Influence(West) Along with Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman stands as one of the two giants of American poetry in the nineteenth century. Whitman’s poetry would influence such Harlem Renaissance writers as Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson. Whitman influenced