Elective English Assignment

Topic: Whitman created a mythic stature of the dead leader, whose loss could represent the

loss of all the rest, in “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”. Deliberate on the given

statement.

Submitted

To

Miss Kesolo-ű Khutso

Department of English

Sazolie College

Submitted

By

Mengubeizo Kense

BA Semester VI

General

Sazolie College

Date of Submission

2nd March’2022
Contents Page no
Introduction 1-2

Whitman created a mythic stature of the dead leader, 3-5

whose loss could represent the loss of all the rest,

in “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”

Conclusion 6

References 7
Introduction:

Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of

the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works.

Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father

of free verse. His work was controversial in its time, particularly his 1855 poetry

collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality.

Whitman's own life came under scrutiny for his presumed homosexuality.

Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long

Island, to parents with interests in Quaker thought, Walter (1789–1855) and Louisa Van

Velsor Whitman (1795–1873). He worked for another printer, Erastus Worthington, in

Brooklyn. His family moved back to West Hills in the spring, but Whitman remained and

took a job at the shop of Alden Spooner, editor of the leading Whig weekly newspaper

the Long-Island Star. While at the Star, Whitman became a regular patron of the local library,

joined a town debating society, began attending theatre performances, and anonymously

published some of his earliest poetry in the New-York Mirror.

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a long poem written by American poet Walt

Whitman (1819–1892) as an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. It was written in the

summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in the aftermath of

the president's assassination on April 14 earlier that year.

The poem, written in free verse in 206 lines, uses many of the literary techniques associated

with the pastoral elegy. Despite being an expression to the fallen president, Whitman neither

mentions Lincoln by name nor discusses the circumstances of his death in the poem. Instead,

he uses a series of rural and natural imagery including the symbols of the lilacs, a drooping

star in the western sky (Venus), and the hermit thrush; and employs the traditional

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progression of the pastoral elegy in moving from grief toward an acceptance and knowledge

of death. The poem also addresses the pity of war through imagery vaguely referencing

the American Civil War (1861–1865), which effectively ended only days before the

assassination.

‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’ following the death of Abraham Lincoln,

comments on how the poet finds solace in the song (poem). The poem begins with the

description of spring and blooming lilacs, which he thinks is a cycle that will remind him of

his loved one. He picks a lilac to be offered to the coffin that has been moving around the city

day and night. Further, the poet employed the “Lilac,” “bird,” and “drooping star” as

recurrent symbols in the poem to deliberate on the impact of war and death, especially

Abraham Lincoln’s. While concluding the poem, the poet seems to be more at peace with

death than his woeful complaint in the beginning. He concludes with the note of death being

an inevitable part that comes eventually to everyone like a mother who comes to ease of the

child from all suffering.

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Whitman created a mythic stature of the dead leader, whose loss could represent the

loss of all the rest, in “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”:

"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd- is an elegy on the death of Abraham Lincoln,

though it never mentions the president by name. Like most elegies, it develops from the

personal (the death of Lincoln and the poet's grief) to the impersonal (the death of "all of

you" and death itself); from an intense feeling of grief to the thought of reconciliation. The

poem, which is one of the finest Whitman ever wrote, is a dramatization of this feeling of

loss. This elegy is grander and more touching than Whitman's other two elegies on Lincoln's

death, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "Hush'd Be the Camps To-day." The form is elegiac but

also contains elements found in operatic music, such as the aria and recitative. The song of

the hermit thrush, for example, is an "aria."

Abraham Lincoln was shot in Washington, D.C., by Booth on April 14, 1865, and died the

following day. The body was sent by train from Washington to Springfield, Illinois. As it

crossed the continent, it was saluted by the people of America. Whitman has not only men

and women but even natural objects saluting the dead man.

At times the poet seems to see his offering of the lilac blossom as being symbolically given to

all the dead; at other moments he sees it as futile, merely a broken twig. He wonders how best

to do honor to the dead, asking how he would decorate the tomb. He suggests that he would

fill it with portraits of everyday life and everyday men. This is a far cry from the classical

statuary and elaborates floral arrangements usually associated with tombs. The language in

the poem follows a similar shift. In the first stanzas the language is formal and at times even

archaic, filled with exhortations and rhetorical devices. By the end much of the

ceremoniousness has been stripped away; the poet offers only “lilac and star and bird twined

with the chant of his soul.” Eventually the poet simply leaves behind the sprig of lilac, and

3
“cease from his song,” still unsure of just how to mourn properly. All has been worked

through save nature, which remains separate and beyond. The death-song of the bird

expresses an understanding and a beauty that Whitman, even while he incorporates it into his

poem, cannot quite master for himself. Unlike the pastoral elegies of old, which use a

temporary rift with nature to comment on modernity, this one shows a profound and

permanent disconnection between the human and natural worlds. “When Lilacs Last in the

Dooryard Bloom’d” mourns for Lincoln in a way that is all the more profound for seeing the

president’s death as only a smaller, albeit highly symbolic, tragedy in the midst of a world of

confusion and sadness.

Whitman continues to apostrophise Lincoln as a star that has fallen. (‘Apostrophe’ is a

rhetorical device whereby someone dead or absent is addressed: here, Abraham Lincoln.)

Whitman makes use of much dark and bleak imagery to convey his grief at Lincoln’s

assassination, referring to ‘shades of night’ (i.e. shadows of night), ‘black murk’, and a ‘harsh

surrounding cloud’ that binds and stifles the poet’s soul. His grief is also like hands holding

him down, making him ‘powerless’.

It is at once both an elegy mourning Abraham Lincoln and a poem about much wider

mourning – or, even, the inability to mourn because things have become too overwhelming.

The assassination of Lincoln came towards the end of the American Civil War, during which

conflict many families would end up mourning lost loved ones.

The final image of the poem is of “the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.” All has

been worked through save nature, which remains separate and beyond. The death-song of the

bird expresses an understanding and a beauty that Whitman, even while he incorporates it

into his poem, cannot quite master for himself. Unlike the pastoral elegies of old, which use a

4
temporary rift with nature to comment on modernity, this one shows a profound and

permanent disconnection between the human and natural worlds. “When Lilacs Last in the

Dooryard Bloom’d” mourns for Lincoln in a way that is all the more profound for seeing the

president’s death as only a smaller, albeit highly symbolic, tragedy in the midst of a world of

confusion and sadness.

5
Conclusion:

“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a first-person monologue and in its final

form, published in 1881 and republished to the present, the poem is divided into sixteen

sections referred to as cantos or strophes that range in length from 5 or 6 lines to as many as

53 lines. The poem does not possess a consistent metrical pattern, and the length of each line

varies from seven syllables to as many as twenty syllables. Literary scholar Kathy Rugoff

says that "the poem...has a broad scope and incorporates a strongly characterized speaker, a

complex narrative action and an array of highly lyrical images."

The poem, written in free verse in 206 lines, uses many of the literary techniques associated

with the pastoral elegy. Despite being an expression to the fallen president, Whitman neither

mentions Lincoln by name nor discusses the circumstances of his death in the poem. Instead,

he uses a series of rural and natural imagery including the symbols of the lilacs, a drooping

star in the western sky (Venus), and the hermit thrush; and employs the traditional

progression of the pastoral elegy in moving from grief toward an acceptance and knowledge

of death. The poem also addresses the pity of war through imagery vaguely referencing

the American Civil War (1861–1865), which effectively ended only days before the

assassination. Also, the poem is one of several that Whitman wrote on Lincoln's death.

Although Whitman did not consider the poem to be among his best works, it has been

compared in both effect and quality to several acclaimed works of English literature,

including elegies such as John Milton's Lycidas (1637) and Percy Bysshe

Shelley's Adonais (1821).

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References:

1) https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/walt-whitman/when-lilacs-last-in-the-dooryard-

bloom-d

1st March’2022

2) https://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/whitman/section7/

1st March’2022

3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Lilacs_Last_in_the_Dooryard_Bloom%27d

1st March’2022

4) https://poemanalysis.com/walt-whitman/when-lilacs-last-in-the-dooryard-bloomd/

1st March’2022

5) https://www.supersummary.com/when-lilacs-last-in-the-dooryard-bloomd/summary/

1st March’2022

6) https://interestingliterature.com/2020/05/whitman-when-lilacs-last-dooryard-bloomd-

analysis/

1st March’2022