Walt Whitman

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Walt Whitman

• (May 31, 1819, New York March 26, 1892, New
  Jersey)

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• By the age of eleven Walt Whitman
• had first worked as an office boy for a
  prominent lawyer, who arranged for
• him a subscription to a library, where
• his self-education began.
• He was interested in
• literature, history, geography, music, theater
  and archeology.

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• the proof of a poet is that his country absorbs
  him as affectionately as he has absorbed it

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• Walt Whitman
• created new poetry
• that celebrated the
• democratic spirit of his
• native land. His
• poems have been
• translated into
• Ukrainian, Spanish,
• French, German, Italian,
• Chinese, Japanese.

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• Walt Whitman created
• one of the greatest books
• in American literature
• Leaves of Grass.
• His new style and
• method was free
• verse.
• Free verse (???????
• ????) Poetry that has no
• fixed pattern of meter,
• rhyme, line, length.

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• Walt Whitman
• wrote democratic
• collection
• Drum-Taps and he
• supported
• A. Lincoln in his
• poetry.

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(No Transcript)
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O Captain! My Captain!

1. Walt Whitman wrote the poem after Abraham
   Lincoln's assassination. Repeated metaphorical
   reference is made to this issue throughout the
   verse. The "ship" spoken of is intended to
   represent the United States of America, while its
   "fearful trip" recalls the troubles of
   the American Civil War. The title role "Captain"
   is Lincoln himself.
2. With a conventional meter and rhyme scheme that
   is unusual for Whitman, it was the only poem
   anthologized during Whitman's lifetime.

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• O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!..
• ? 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 ? heart! heart! heart!
• O the bleeding drops of red,
• Where on the deck my Captain lies,
• Fallen cold and dead.
• ? 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,

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Walt Whitman

• - assembled true facts from life
• - found his own style of expressing them
• - created a new form of poetry
• - believed a real democracy would be made
  possible
• - hoped that such democracy would come into being
  after the complete victory of the Northern states
  in the Civil War
• - insisted that the human being can enjoy his
  right to human dignity and clear conscience only
  under a just and complete democracy.

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• THE END
• By Tetiana Hulatkan 11-c