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Who Is Walt Whitman's Elegy For J. F. K?

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Many poems, especially elegies, are written after a famous or well-known person passes away. “O Captain! My Captain” by Walt Whitman and “Elegy for J.F.K” by W. H. Auden are two such poems written after the passing of important figures in history. Even though these poems are elegies written after similar role-filling people, they are extremely different in many ways including: structure, tone, and style of writing. One similarity is that these poems were written after presidents who had been assassinated during presidency. “O Captain! My Captain” was written for Abraham Lincoln after he was shot while seeing a play. “Elegy for J.F.K.” was for president John F. Kennedy after he had been shot as well. Although these elegies were written with sadness for the leaders, they were written with completely different structures. “Elegy for J.F.K.” was written in standard format while “O Captain! My Captain!” was written with indentions, adding a suspense effect. …show more content…

Both these poems are not in celebration or remembrance of these figure’s deaths, but an emotional narrative. Each of these express the sadness of either the Captain in “O Captain! My Captain!” while the sadness is expressed towards John F. Kennedy in “Elegy for J.F.K.”. And although these tones are similar, they are also slightly different. “O Captain! My Captain!” has a tone of despairing hopefulness. This can be see on lines 18 and 19, “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;” where the writer is expressing that his captain is dead, but everything is over and everyone is safe. In “Elegy for J.F.K.”, the tone is more depressed in the moment. Seen in lines 4, 5 and 6, “Why than, why there, Why thus, we cry, did he die? The heavens are silent”, the writer is talking of a hopelessness immediately after John F. Kennedy’s

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