When taking a closer look at Walt Whitman’s poems, readers can feel what he thinks about the Civil War through his experiences, and about America as a Democracy. In addition, they can find that his poems are different from others’. Readers can see his unique style of poetry through his use of the new style of poem called free verse. This is the reason that he is known as the father of free verse and it is said that his poems are still read by many people today. “Leaves of Grass” is a collection of his poems and is the book that has influenced not only Americans, but also people all over the world. “O Captain! My Captain!” is one of the poems in this book and is a part of his representative work. In “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman, readers can see how the death of Abraham Lincoln leads him to create a poem with a distinct rhyme scheme while focusing on the literal meaning of the loss of the President; Walt Whitman also uses symbols and a variety of literary devices to develop the poem with the theme of the death of Lincoln and the end of the Civil War.
While Walt Whitman is famous for an American poet, the Civil War and the President Abraham Lincoln had great influences on his life. Especially, he is known as an American poet of Democracy. “He conceived of democracy as a state of society in which every individual must actively participate in shaping the policies of the government” (Ford 202). He is famous for not only an American poet but a nurse. He experienced