Blog 18- LAST ONE :)

The poem that I chose to read by Walt Whitman was “O Captain! My Captain!”. This poem is about Walt Whitman’s hero, Abraham Lincoln. Walt Whitman admired Abraham Lincoln a lot and thought that he was a great president. He wrote this poem after Lincoln died.  (Lorcher)  “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;” (Whitman). In this passage of the poem, Whitman writes about how they had won the victory of the war, but when he looks at his captain, he is “pale and still”. I think that Abraham Lincoln’s death affected Whitman a lot because Lincoln was such a hero to Whitman.  I think that Walt Whitman was very proud of Abraham Lincoln and thought that he was a great leader, because in one part of the poem, he says, “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;” (Whitman). I think that here Whitman is giving Abraham Lincoln credit for the victory in the Civil War. He is saying that everyone is cheering for him and the flag is flying just for him and the bugles are sounding for him.

I believe that Walt Whitman was against slavery. Abraham Lincoln spent a lot of his presidency trying to abolish slavery. He is the president that declared war and ended slavery for good. Since Walt Whitman was such a huge supporter of Abraham Lincoln, I think that he probably held the same views on slavery that Abraham Lincoln held. Walt Whitman was against slavery and so were Emerson and Thoreau. Emerson and Thoreau fought in the Civil War to end slavery. They both believed that the individual was very important and that slavery should not exist. I think that this is the biggest similarity between Walt Whitman and Thoreau and Emerson.

Bibliography

Lorcher, Trent. ""O Captain! My Captain!" Analysis: The Meaning Behind Walkt Whitman's Famous Poem." Bright Hub Education. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. 

Whitman, Walt. "O Captain! My Captain!" By Walt Whitman : The Poetry Foundation. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.

Blog 17

The poem that I read by Emily Dickenson was “I Measure Every Greif I Meet”. This poem is about the grief that Emily Dickinson faces in her life. In the poem, she basically says that she has a lot of grief in her life and she feels that other people’s grieves cannot be worse than her own. She says that they can only be equal or less than hers.  “I wonder if it hurts to live – And if They have to try – And whether – could They choose between – It would not be – to die –“ (Dickinson). In this passage, Dickinson wonders whether people who have a lot of grief would prefer to be dead rather than to face their greives. I think that if Dickinson is thinking of this, I think that her grieves must be pretty bad. If her grieves were not that bad, she would not be thinking of death as an alternative. A lot of people have grieves, but I think that the grieves that Dickinson is talking about are much worse than what a lot of people go through. Some grieves that Dickinson mentions in her poem are Death, Want, and Cold, or Despair. 

Emily Dickinson lived a lot of her life in isolation. She lived with her family, so she was not completely alone, but she did not leave the house a lot. She got homesick very easily so she did not leave a lot. There were also not many visitors that came to her house. ("Emily Dickinson- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More.")  I think that the fact that Emily Dickinson lived a lot of her life in isolation shaped her writing a lot. I think that this is what makes her similar to Emerson and Thoreau. Emerson and Thoreau also lived their life in isolation from society. They both left society to live their lives in isolation in the woods and that is when they wrote a lot of their more popular pieces of writing.

Biography

"Emily Dickinson- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More." Poets.org. Poets.org. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155>.

Dickinson, Emily. "I Measure Every Grief I Meet (561)- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More." Poets.org. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.