Walt Whitman Meaning

Poetry is an extremely expressive form of art, and Walt Whitman truly takes the cake for expressiveness. Walter Whitman, born May 31, 1819, can be credited as the father of free verse. With no formal education, all of Whitman’s poems and work are accredited to him and his experiences. He came from a large family with eight siblings and an alcoholic father, but managed to keep a positive view on life, as shown by some of his later works (Chase 334). Whitman was a man of many jobs, from carpentry to journalism, but his most important was working as a volunteer nurse on the front of World War I, as the front lines of war only fueled his patriotism. Many expressions of war were created during this time period, along with Romantic and Realist workings.

The meanings contained within any poem he wrote about President Lincoln all held him to the highest regard. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd” shows just how much he cares just in the title alone. The title can be taken in two ways, both of which are related back to Lincoln. The use of the word last can either indicate the lilacs that have yet to flower, or it can indicate a memory of the flower. The former would show that good times are yet to arrive while the latter shows annual rejuvenation. Both meanings are optimistic and show Whitman’s positive outlook, even when faced with the death of someone so important to him (“Analysis”). The actual contents of the poem is deary at first, but shows Walt Whitman’s natural hopefulness in the end. Whitman isn’t tiptoeing around the subject of Abraham Lincoln’s death and mentions it within the first few lines: “When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, / And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, / I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring” (Whitman, “When”). Whitman is obviously in despair over the President’s death, which wasn’t uncommon for someone as patriotic as him. Luckily, near the end of the poem, he sees how life continues on and starts to see death in a more positive light “For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake, / Lilac and star and bird twined with the

Whitman works in a hospital, but also goes out to the battlefield and thed to the wounded, putting himself in danger in order to aid others. The patriotism shown by him and his will to help are just swo qualities expected and admired from a patriot such as himself. His poetry also helps let the average person who isn’t experiencing battle to know what really happens there. Although morbid and disturbing, his poems of the war are real life accounts of what happens during war, and the working man has a right to know. Whitman used his poetry to express the things that civilians would never see, and how the macabre acts affect them throughout life. In the poem “To a Certain Civilian,” Walt Whitman patronizes those ignorant of war and explains that they’ll never know what he and his comrades go through. He also expresses that his poems and works that relate to the war are to be taken seriously. A prime example is the last lines of this poem, where he speaks of his poems as nothing to be calming. “What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my works, / And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano-tunes, / For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me” (Whitman “To” 8-10). Walter Whitman originally wrote his poems for the general public as form of expressing his thoughts and telling the world of the brutalities of those at war, and