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Beat ! Drums ! By Walt Whitman

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Noah Smith Mrs. DiChiara AL EH 10 / 1st Period 30 January 2023 Title of Your Report As long as there are disagreements there will be wars. Transcendentalists are opposed to war and their beliefs surround the individual person, leading them to also oppose slavery. Walt Whitman, an early Transcendentalist during the Civil War, faced a predicament of war and slavery. In “Beat! Beat! Drums!” Walt Whiman uses an apostrophe, repetition, and an extended metaphor to convey that war throws life into disorder and death is an inevitable consequence. The idea that war throws life into disorder and that death is a guaranteed consequence of war is revealed in the apostrophe of the drums and bugles’ call to battle. The speaker of the poem orders “Beat! beat! …show more content…

The speaker of Whitman’s poem demands that the drums and bugles “burst like a ruthless force, / Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,” and play “Over the traffic of cities.” This contrasts the third stanza where he requests that “even the trestles shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses, / So strong you thump O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow.” The first two stanzas express the side of Whitman that knows war is necessary while the final stanza conveys how war is extremely disruptive and will bring life to a halt. He wants the Civil War to stop everything and cause chaos for the ultimate good, but realizes that there will be a great deal of death and destruction. Writing about the third stanza, Oliver determines, “the poet is now sarcastic, urging the drums and bugles to cover the sounds of men dying.” The last stanza presents the complete consequence of the war. Randall discerns that “Although the speaker recognizes the cost of the war…he would have the ‘terrible’ (line 21) drums and blaring bugles do their work.” Even though Whitman would rather not have the war, he knows that the Civil War is a necessary evil to get rid of slavery. This metaphor describes the awful path of the war throughout the

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