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When Lilacs Last In the Dooryard Bloom'd

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Title: When Lilacs Last In the Dooryard Bloom'd


1
When Lilacs Last In the Dooryard Bloom'd
  • By Walt Whitman
  • Cummings, Michael. "When Lilacs Last in the
    Dooryard Bloom'd A Study Guide." Free Study
    Guides for Shakespeare and Other Authors. Web.
    29 Mar. 2012.
  • lthttp//www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides5/lilac
    s.htmlgt.

2
Type of Work
  • "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a
    lyric poem in the form of an elegy lamenting the
    death of Abraham Lincoln.

3
  • Walt Whitman wrote it in free verse, a form of
    poetry without a metrical pattern.
  • One line may be short, containing only seven
    syllables
  • another may be long, containing more than
    twenty. 

4
The poem exhibits characteristics of a special
type of elegy, the pastoral elegy.
  • These characteristics include the following
  • 1...A rural locale as its setting.
  • 2...An idealized shepherd (Lincoln figuratively
    shepherded the American people through a crisis).
  • 3...Expressions of grief and praise for the
    deceased.
  • 4...A funeral procession.
  • 5...Nature imagery.
  • 6...A meditation on death.
  • 7...An acceptance of death.

5
Publication
  • Gibson Brothers, a Washington company, published
    "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" in
    1865 in a volume that contained another Whitman
    poem, "Sequel to Drum Taps."
  • "Lilacs" became part of the 1867 edition of
    Leaves of Grass, an expanding collection of
    Whitman's poems. 

6
Setting
  • .......The time is April. The place is a rural
    locale with an old farmhouse.
  • In front of the house is a yard with a lilac
    bush.
  • Nearby is a a swamp.

7
Historical Background
  • Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth American
    president, was mortally wounded by John Wilkes
    Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on
    the evening of April 14, 1865.
  • Wilkes had shot him in the back of the head while
    Lincoln was in the presidential box watching the
    third act of a play, Our American Cousin.
  • Lincoln died the next day.

8
  • After lying in state at the Capitol on April 20,
    his body was transported by train to Springfield,
    Ill., for burial in Oak Ridge Cemetery. 

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11
Tone
  • The tone of the poem is somber and heavy with
    grief, but its mournfulness eases somewhat after
    the speaker observes that death ends suffering.
  • He even welcomes death
  • Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round
    the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the
    day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or
    later delicate death. Prais'd be the fathomless
    universe, For life and joy, and for objects and
    knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love --
    but praise! praise! praise! For the
    sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
  • (lines 136-143)

12
Themes
  • Grief
  • The poem expresses intense grief at the loss of
    Abraham Lincoln.
  • After describing the fallen president as "the
    great star that early droop'd in the western
    sky," the poem's speaker looks at the sky and
    says, 
  • O shades of nightO moody, tearful night! O
    great star disappear'dO the black murk that
    hides the star! Cruel hands that hold me
    powerlessO helpless soul of me! O harsh
    surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.
  • (lines 8-11)

13
Themes
  • Acceptance of Death
  • After expressing his sadness at the death of
    Lincoln and his distress at the vision of mangled
    corpses on the Civil War battlefield, the speaker
    concludes that death is actually a friend it
    ends suffering.
  • Only the living know affliction and misery. 
  • Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round
    the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the
    day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or
    later delicate death. Prais'd be the fathomless
    universe, For life and joy, and for objects and
    knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love --
    but praise! praise! praise! For the
    sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
  • lines 136-143)

14
Themes
  • Rebirth
  • Although the speaker says he will mourn the death
    of Lincoln every April, he also says he will
    celebrate the rebirth of Lincoln's spirit at the
    same time.
  • This rebirth will coincide with the rebirth of
    nature in sprouting plants and blooming flowers.
  • Even the sprig that the speaker broke off the
    lilac bush--a symbol of Lincoln's broken body
    after a bullet entered his skull--will grow back
    and perfume the spring air. 

15
Themes
  • Reunification
  • Thanks in large part to Lincoln's leadership, the
    Union defeated the Confederacy, and the North and
    South once again became the United States after
    the war.
  • Whitman seems to allude to the reunification when
    he says that among the pictures he will hang on
    the wall of Lincoln's tomb is one of "the South
    and the North in the light" (line 92).
  • This light, the speaker says, is a "miracle
    spreading bathing all . . . enveloping man and
    land."
  • In other words, after the darkness of war, the
    South and the North emerged into the light of
    peace as one nation.
  • The speaker also alludes to the unification of
    East and West when he says, 

16
Style and Literary Devices
  • To help him express the depth of his intense
    feeling for his subject, Whitman uses
  • first-person point of view
  • vivid sensory language
  • Symbols
  • and frequent repetition of key words and phrases.

17
  • Also, rather than strait-jacketing his thoughts
    into an established metrical pattern with fixed
    line lengths and stress patterns, he casts them
    in free verse, allowing his content and the power
    of his passion to dictate line length and rhythm.
  • Finally, to give the elegy a poetic cast, he uses
    the traditional devices of inversion of word
    order, internal rhyme, and archaisms.

18
  • Let us look at each of these devices. 

19
First-Person Point of View
  • Whitman believed it was incumbent upon a poet to
    reveal his feelings, his personality, in his
    work.
  • Consequently, he uses I, me, and my in his poetry
    to present his reactions and responses to
    everything from the activity of a spider ("A
    Noiseless Patient Spider") and the lecture of a
    scientist ("When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer")
    to the death of Lincoln in "Lilacs."
  • This approachalong with his use of free verse,
    which has no metrical pattern and therefore
    somewhat resembles everyday conversationhelps
    him to establish rapport with the reader.
  • His poem thus becomes like a signed, handwritten
    letter to the reader instead of an impersonal
    form letter.

20
Sensory Language
  • Whitman creates strong, almost palpable, imagery,
    as in the following passage
  • And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the
    walls,  To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
    (line 80-81)
  • Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes,
    With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the
    gray smoke lucid and bright, With floods of the
    yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking
    sun, burning, expanding the air With the fresh
    sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green
    leaves of the trees prolific  In the distance
    the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with
    a wind-dapple here and there With ranging hills
    on the banks, with many a line against the sky,
    and shadows And the city at hand, with
    dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys, And
    all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and
    the workmen homeward returning. (lines 82-89)

21
Symbols
  • Whitman's use of symbols enables him to express
    his feelings succinctly. 
  • "great star" symbolizes Lincoln
  • (The star the speaker sees is actually the planet
    Venus.)
  • A star is a source of light. So was Lincoln.
  • At a time when the evils of slavery and war
    darkened the land, Lincoln illumined it with his
    leadership. Slavery was abolished. The North and
    South were reunited. 

22
Symbols
  • Consider also the sprig of lilac that the
    narrator breaks from the bush
  • "A sprig, with its flower, I break" (line 17).
  • This sprig represents Lincoln's broken body after
    a bullet entered his skull and mortally wounded
    him.
  • But it also represents the rebirth of Lincoln's
    spirit, as well as the rebirth of the spirit of
    the soldiers who fell in the Civil War
  • for the sprig will grow back the following spring
    and perfume the air once again. 
  • The leaves of the lilac bush itself are symbols.
  • Shaped like a heart, they represent love and
    compassion. 

23
Repetition (Anaphora)
  • Whitman frequently repeats words or groups of
    words in successive phrases or clauses (a figure
    of speech known as anaphora) to impart rhythm and
    musicality and to expand on an idea.
  • Here are examples
  • O powerful, western, fallen star! O shades of
    night! O moody, tearful night! O great star
    disappeard! O the black murk that hides the
    star! O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O
    helpless soul of me!  O harsh surrounding cloud,
    that will not free my soul! (lines 7-11)

24
  • Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
    Through day and night, with the great cloud
    darkening the land, With the pomp of the
    inloopd flags, with the cities draped in black, 
    With the show of the States themselves, as of
    crape-veild women, standing, With processions
    long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night,
    With the countless torches litwith the silent
    sea of faces, and the unbared heads, With the
    waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the
    sombre faces, With dirges through the night,
    with the thousand voices rising strong and
    solemn  With all the mournful voices of the
    dirges, pourd around the coffin (lines 33-41)

25
  • As we walkd up and down in the dark blue so
    mystic, As we walkd in silence the transparent
    shadowy night, As I saw you had something to
    tell, as you bent to me night after night, As
    you droopd from the sky low down, as if to my
    side, (while the other stars all lookd on)  As
    we wanderd together the solemn night, (for
    something, I know not what, kept me from sleep)
    As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of
    the west, ere you went, how full you were of woe
    As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze,
    in the cold transparent night, As I watchd
    where you passd and was lost in the netherward
    black of the night, As my soul, in its trouble,
    dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad orb

26
  • I hear your notesI hear your call I hearI
    come presentlyI understand you (lines 57-67)

27
Internal Rhyme
  • There is no pattern of end rhyme in the poem.
  • However, Whitman does use internal rhyme.
  • Here are examples
  • Ever-returning. spring! trinity sure to me you
    bring (line 4) And how shall I deck my song for
    the large sweet soul that has gone? (line 73)
    till there on the prairies meeting (line 76)
    Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes
    (line 82) with many a line against the sky (line
    87) And the white skeletons of young menI saw
    them (line 179)

28
Inversion
  • Another traditional poetic device Whitman uses is
    inversion of word order. 
  • with the perfume strong I love (line
    14).............
  • Normal order with the strong perfume that I love
  • A sprig, with its flower, I break. (line 17)
  • Normal order I break a sprig, with its flower

29
Inversion
  • every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown
    fields uprising (line 29)
  • Normal order every grain uprising from . . . .
  • For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge
    curious (line 141)
  • Normal order curious objects and knowledge
  • Loud in the pines and cedars dim (line 167)
  • Normal order the dim pines and cedars

30
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