Walt Whitman and United State Period of Great Uncertainty

             Walt Whitman was born in the early 1800s and lived during a period of great uncertainty in the United States. The nation was fairly young, and still in search of solutions to many of it's existing problems. First and foremost of these problems was slavery. Whitman, though, received little formal education, so most of the standard teachings of the state were unknown to him. He began working at only eleven years old, holding such jobs as journalist and editor of several newspapers between 1830 and 1850. At this point he began to write poetry, implementing a new innovative style of writing. His first major publication, the first edition of "Leaves of Grass", hit American society in 1855 with a bang. Whitman wrote about topics that had been labelled risque by the rest of society. Soon after came the Civil War, during which Whitman worked as a volunteer war nurse, where he witnessed the horrid images of death that influenced his works that followed. Most historians will agree that civil war is a nation's darkest hour, and in this dark hour, Walt Whitman developed his unique style of poetry that could never be duplicated. Fusing subject and form, Whitman frequently put forth death as the subject of his poetry, as is shown in such poems as "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" and "Whispers of Heavenly Death.".

             Following the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865, Whitman wrote several pieces in his memory which dealt with Whitman's ideas about death. One such poem is "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". The poem tells the reader of how Whitman felt about the Lincoln's death, and how those feelings evolved with time. As it starts out, he appears to feel sorrowful, and conveys a negative image of death. His unending sorrow is shown in how he refers to Lincoln as a "drooping star" and his mourning as an "ever-returning spring." He uses the sprig of lilac as a symbol of the earthly love that Lincoln has lost and that he wishes he could return to him.

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