When Lilacs Last In the Dooryard Bloom'd

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When Lilacs Last In the Dooryard Bloom'd

• By Walt Whitman
• Cummings, Michael. "When Lilacs Last in the
  Dooryard Bloom'd A Study Guide." Free Study
  Guides for Shakespeare and Other Authors. Web.
  29 Mar. 2012.
• lthttp//www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides5/lilac
  s.htmlgt.

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Type of Work

• "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a
  lyric poem in the form of an elegy lamenting the
  death of Abraham Lincoln.

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• Walt Whitman wrote it in free verse, a form of
  poetry without a metrical pattern.
• One line may be short, containing only seven
  syllables
• another may be long, containing more than
  twenty. 

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The poem exhibits characteristics of a special
type of elegy, the pastoral elegy.

• These characteristics include the following
• 1...A rural locale as its setting.
• 2...An idealized shepherd (Lincoln figuratively
  shepherded the American people through a crisis).
  
• 3...Expressions of grief and praise for the
  deceased.
• 4...A funeral procession.
• 5...Nature imagery.
• 6...A meditation on death.
• 7...An acceptance of death.

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Publication

• Gibson Brothers, a Washington company, published
  "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" in
  1865 in a volume that contained another Whitman
  poem, "Sequel to Drum Taps."
• "Lilacs" became part of the 1867 edition of
  Leaves of Grass, an expanding collection of
  Whitman's poems. 

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Setting

• .......The time is April. The place is a rural
  locale with an old farmhouse.
• In front of the house is a yard with a lilac
  bush.
• Nearby is a a swamp.

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Historical Background

• Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth American
  president, was mortally wounded by John Wilkes
  Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on
  the evening of April 14, 1865.
• Wilkes had shot him in the back of the head while
  Lincoln was in the presidential box watching the
  third act of a play, Our American Cousin.
• Lincoln died the next day.

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• After lying in state at the Capitol on April 20,
  his body was transported by train to Springfield,
  Ill., for burial in Oak Ridge Cemetery. 

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Tone

• The tone of the poem is somber and heavy with
  grief, but its mournfulness eases somewhat after
  the speaker observes that death ends suffering.
• He even welcomes death
• Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round
  the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the
  day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or
  later delicate death. Prais'd be the fathomless
  universe, For life and joy, and for objects and
  knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love --
  but praise! praise! praise! For the
  sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
• (lines 136-143)

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Themes

• Grief
• The poem expresses intense grief at the loss of
  Abraham Lincoln.
• After describing the fallen president as "the
  great star that early droop'd in the western
  sky," the poem's speaker looks at the sky and
  says, 
• O shades of nightO moody, tearful night! O
  great star disappear'dO the black murk that
  hides the star! Cruel hands that hold me
  powerlessO helpless soul of me! O harsh
  surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.
• (lines 8-11)

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Themes

• Acceptance of Death
• After expressing his sadness at the death of
  Lincoln and his distress at the vision of mangled
  corpses on the Civil War battlefield, the speaker
  concludes that death is actually a friend it
  ends suffering.
• Only the living know affliction and misery. 
• Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round
  the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the
  day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or
  later delicate death. Prais'd be the fathomless
  universe, For life and joy, and for objects and
  knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love --
  but praise! praise! praise! For the
  sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
• lines 136-143)

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Themes

• Rebirth
• Although the speaker says he will mourn the death
  of Lincoln every April, he also says he will
  celebrate the rebirth of Lincoln's spirit at the
  same time.
• This rebirth will coincide with the rebirth of
  nature in sprouting plants and blooming flowers.
• Even the sprig that the speaker broke off the
  lilac bush--a symbol of Lincoln's broken body
  after a bullet entered his skull--will grow back
  and perfume the spring air. 

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Themes

• Reunification
• Thanks in large part to Lincoln's leadership, the
  Union defeated the Confederacy, and the North and
  South once again became the United States after
  the war.
• Whitman seems to allude to the reunification when
  he says that among the pictures he will hang on
  the wall of Lincoln's tomb is one of "the South
  and the North in the light" (line 92).
• This light, the speaker says, is a "miracle
  spreading bathing all . . . enveloping man and
  land."
• In other words, after the darkness of war, the
  South and the North emerged into the light of
  peace as one nation.
• The speaker also alludes to the unification of
  East and West when he says, 

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Style and Literary Devices

• To help him express the depth of his intense
  feeling for his subject, Whitman uses
• first-person point of view
• vivid sensory language
• Symbols
• and frequent repetition of key words and phrases.

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• Also, rather than strait-jacketing his thoughts
  into an established metrical pattern with fixed
  line lengths and stress patterns, he casts them
  in free verse, allowing his content and the power
  of his passion to dictate line length and rhythm.
  
• Finally, to give the elegy a poetic cast, he uses
  the traditional devices of inversion of word
  order, internal rhyme, and archaisms.

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• Let us look at each of these devices. 

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First-Person Point of View

• Whitman believed it was incumbent upon a poet to
  reveal his feelings, his personality, in his
  work.
• Consequently, he uses I, me, and my in his poetry
  to present his reactions and responses to
  everything from the activity of a spider ("A
  Noiseless Patient Spider") and the lecture of a
  scientist ("When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer")
  to the death of Lincoln in "Lilacs."
• This approachalong with his use of free verse,
  which has no metrical pattern and therefore
  somewhat resembles everyday conversationhelps
  him to establish rapport with the reader.
• His poem thus becomes like a signed, handwritten
  letter to the reader instead of an impersonal
  form letter.

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Sensory Language

• Whitman creates strong, almost palpable, imagery,
  as in the following passage
• And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the
  walls,  To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
  (line 80-81)
• Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes,
  With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the
  gray smoke lucid and bright, With floods of the
  yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking
  sun, burning, expanding the air With the fresh
  sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green
  leaves of the trees prolific  In the distance
  the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with
  a wind-dapple here and there With ranging hills
  on the banks, with many a line against the sky,
  and shadows And the city at hand, with
  dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys, And
  all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and
  the workmen homeward returning. (lines 82-89)

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Symbols

• Whitman's use of symbols enables him to express
  his feelings succinctly. 
• "great star" symbolizes Lincoln
• (The star the speaker sees is actually the planet
  Venus.)
• A star is a source of light. So was Lincoln.
• At a time when the evils of slavery and war
  darkened the land, Lincoln illumined it with his
  leadership. Slavery was abolished. The North and
  South were reunited. 

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Symbols

• Consider also the sprig of lilac that the
  narrator breaks from the bush
• "A sprig, with its flower, I break" (line 17).
• This sprig represents Lincoln's broken body after
  a bullet entered his skull and mortally wounded
  him.
• But it also represents the rebirth of Lincoln's
  spirit, as well as the rebirth of the spirit of
  the soldiers who fell in the Civil War
• for the sprig will grow back the following spring
  and perfume the air once again. 
• The leaves of the lilac bush itself are symbols.
• Shaped like a heart, they represent love and
  compassion. 

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Repetition (Anaphora)

• Whitman frequently repeats words or groups of
  words in successive phrases or clauses (a figure
  of speech known as anaphora) to impart rhythm and
  musicality and to expand on an idea.
• Here are examples
• O powerful, western, fallen star! O shades of
  night! O moody, tearful night! O great star
  disappeard! O the black murk that hides the
  star! O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O
  helpless soul of me!  O harsh surrounding cloud,
  that will not free my soul! (lines 7-11)

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• Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
  Through day and night, with the great cloud
  darkening the land, With the pomp of the
  inloopd flags, with the cities draped in black, 
  With the show of the States themselves, as of
  crape-veild women, standing, With processions
  long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night,
  With the countless torches litwith the silent
  sea of faces, and the unbared heads, With the
  waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the
  sombre faces, With dirges through the night,
  with the thousand voices rising strong and
  solemn  With all the mournful voices of the
  dirges, pourd around the coffin (lines 33-41)

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• As we walkd up and down in the dark blue so
  mystic, As we walkd in silence the transparent
  shadowy night, As I saw you had something to
  tell, as you bent to me night after night, As
  you droopd from the sky low down, as if to my
  side, (while the other stars all lookd on)  As
  we wanderd together the solemn night, (for
  something, I know not what, kept me from sleep)
  As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of
  the west, ere you went, how full you were of woe
  As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze,
  in the cold transparent night, As I watchd
  where you passd and was lost in the netherward
  black of the night, As my soul, in its trouble,
  dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad orb

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• I hear your notesI hear your call I hearI
  come presentlyI understand you (lines 57-67)

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Internal Rhyme

• There is no pattern of end rhyme in the poem.
• However, Whitman does use internal rhyme.
• Here are examples
• Ever-returning. spring! trinity sure to me you
  bring (line 4) And how shall I deck my song for
  the large sweet soul that has gone? (line 73)
  till there on the prairies meeting (line 76)
  Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes
  (line 82) with many a line against the sky (line
  87) And the white skeletons of young menI saw
  them (line 179)

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Inversion

• Another traditional poetic device Whitman uses is
  inversion of word order. 
• with the perfume strong I love (line
  14).............
• Normal order with the strong perfume that I love
  
• A sprig, with its flower, I break. (line 17)
• Normal order I break a sprig, with its flower

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Inversion

• every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown
  fields uprising (line 29)
• Normal order every grain uprising from . . . .
• For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge
  curious (line 141)
• Normal order curious objects and knowledge
• Loud in the pines and cedars dim (line 167)
• Normal order the dim pines and cedars

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