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[Macedonio Heninger]

O Captain! My Captain!" is an extended metaphor poem written by Walt Whitman in 1865 about the death of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln. Well received upon publication, the poem was Whitman's first to be anthologized and the most popular during his lifetime. Together with "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day", and "This Dust Was Once the Man", it is one of four poems written by Whitman about the death of Lincoln.

During the American Civil War, Whitman moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked for the government and volunteered at hospitals. Although he never met Lincoln, Whitman felt a connection to him and was greatly moved by Lincoln's assassination. "My Captain" was first published in The Saturday Press on November 4, 1865, and appeared in Sequel to Drum-Taps later that year. He later included it in the collection Leaves of Grass and recited the poem at several lectures on Lincoln's death.

Stylistically, the poem is uncharacteristic of Whitman's poetry because of its rhyming, song-like flow, and simple "ship of state" metaphor. These elements likely contributed to the poem's initial positive reception and popularity, with many celebrating it as one of the greatest American works of poetry. Critical opinion has shifted since the mid-20th century, with some scholars deriding it as conventional and unoriginal. The poem has made several appearances in popular culture; as it never mentions Lincoln, it has been invoked upon the death of several other heads of state. It is famously featured in Dead Poets Society (1989) and is frequently associated with the star of that film, Robin Williams.

Walt Whitman established his reputation as a poet in the late 1850s to early 1860s with the 1855 release of Leaves of Grass. Whitman intended to write a distinctly American epic and developed a free verse style inspired by the cadences of the King James Bible.[2][3] The brief volume, first released in 1855, was considered controversial by some,[4] with critics particularly objecting to Whitman's blunt depictions of sexuality and the poem's "homoerotic overtones".[5] Whitman's work received significant attention following praise for Leaves of Grass by American transcendentalist lecturer and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson.[6][7]

Although they never met, Whitman saw Abraham Lincoln several times between 1861 and 1865, sometimes at close quarters. The first time was when Lincoln stopped in New York City in 1861 on his way to Washington. Whitman noticed the president-elect's "striking appearance" and "unpretentious dignity", and trusted Lincoln's "supernatural tact" and "idiomatic Western genius".[16][17] He admired the president, writing in October 1863: "I love the President personally."[18] Whitman considered himself and Lincoln to be "afloat in the same stream" and "rooted in the same ground".[16][17] Whitman and Lincoln shared similar views on slavery and the Union, and similarities have been noted in their literary styles and inspirations. Whitman later declared: "Lincoln gets almost nearer me than anybody else."[16][17]

There is an account of Lincoln's reading Whitman's Leaves of Grass poetry collection in his office,[19] and another of the president's saying "Well, he looks like a man," upon seeing Whitman in Washington, D.C.[20] According to scholar John Matteson: "[t]he truth of both these stories is hard to establish."[21] Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, greatly moved Whitman, who wrote several poems in tribute to the fallen president. "O Captain! My Captain!", "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day", and "This Dust Was Once the Man" were all written on Lincoln's death. While these poems do not specifically mention Lincoln, they turn the assassination of the president into a sort of martyrdom.[16][17]

The poem rhymes using an AABBCDED rhyme scheme,[38] and is designed for recitation.[39] It is written in nine quatrains, organized in three stanzas. Each stanza has two quatrains of four seven-beat lines, followed by a four-line refrain, which changes slightly from stanza to stanza, in a tetrameter/trimeter ballad beat.[23][40][41] Historian Daniel Mark Epstein wrote in 2004 that he considers the structure of the poem to be "uncharacteristically mechanical, formulaic".[42] He goes on to describe the poem as a conventional ballad, comparable to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's writing in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and much of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's work, especially "In Memoriam A.H.H."[41] Literary critic Jerome Loving wrote to the opposite effect in 1999, saying that the structure gave "My Captain" a "sing-song" quality, evocative of folk groups like the Hutchinson Family Singers and Cheney Family Singers.[36][43] The scholar Ted Genoways argued that the poem retains distinctive features characteristic to Whitman, such as varying line length.[38] Whitman very rarely wrote poems that rhymed;[e] in a review contemporary to Whitman, The Atlantic suggested that Whitman was rising "above himself" by writing a poem unlike his others. The writer elaborated that, while his previous work had represented "unchecked nature", the rhymes of "My Captain" were a sincere expression of emotion.[45]

The poem was Whitman's most popular during his lifetime, and the only one to be anthologized before his death.[33] The historian Michael C. Cohen noted that "My Captain" was "carried beyond the limited circulation of Leaves of Grass and into the popular heart"; its popularity remade "history in the form of a ballad".[51] Initial reception to the poem was very positive. In early 1866, a reviewer in the Boston Commonwealth wrote that the poem was the most moving dirge for Lincoln ever written,[24][52] adding that Drum Taps "will do much [...] to remove the prejudice against Mr. Whitman in many minds".[52] Similarly, after reading Sequel to Drum Taps, the author William Dean Howells became convinced that Whitman had cleaned the "old channels of their filth" and poured "a stream of blameless purity" through; he would become a prominent defender of Whitman.[48][53] One of the earliest criticisms of the poem was authored by Edward P. Mitchell in 1881 who considered the rhymes "crude".[54] "My Captain" is considered uncharacteristic of Whitman's poetry,[55][48] and it was praised initially as a departure from his typical style. Author Julian Hawthorne wrote in 1891 that the poem was touching partially because it was such a stylistic departure.[56] In 1892, The Atlantic wrote that "My Captain" was universally accepted as Whitman's "one great contribution to the world's literature",[45] and George Rice Carpenter, a scholar and biographer of Whitman, said in 1903 that the poem was possibly the best work of Civil War poetry, praising its imagery as "beautiful".[57]

Beginning in the 1920s, Whitman became increasingly respected by critics, and by 1950 he was one of the most prominent American authors. Poetry anthologies began to include poetry that was considered more "authentic" to Whitman's poetic style, and, as a result, "My Captain" became less popular. In an analysis of poetry anthologies, Joseph Csicsila found that, although "My Captain" had been Whitman's most frequently published poem, shortly after the end of World War II it "all but disappeared" from American anthologies, and had "virtually disappeared" after 1966.[66] William E. Barton wrote in Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman, published in 1965, that the poem was "the least like Whitman of anything Whitman ever wrote; yet it is his highest literary monument".[67]

Critical opinion of the poem began to shift in the middle of the 20th century. In 1980, Whitman's biographer Justin Kaplan called the poem "thoroughly conventional".[33] The literary critic F. O. Matthiessen criticized the poem, writing in 1941 that its early popularity was an "ample and ironic comment" on how Whitman's more authentic poetry could not reach a wide audience. Michael C. Cohen, a literature professor, said Matthiessen's writing exemplified 20th-century opinion on the poem.[68][51] In the 1997 book A Reader's Guide to Walt Whitman, scholar Gay Wilson Allen concluded that the poem's symbols were "trite", the rhythm "artificial", and the rhymes "erratic".[28]

The poem describes the United States as a ship, a metaphor that Whitman had previously used in "Death in the School-Room".[39] This metaphor of a ship of state has been often used by authors.[74] Whitman himself had written a letter on March 19, 1863, that compared the head of state to a ship's captain.[69] Whitman had also likely read newspaper reports that Lincoln had dreamed of a ship under full sail the night before his assassination;[69] the imagery was allegedly a recurring dream of Lincoln's before significant moments in his life.[75]

"My Captain" begins by describing Lincoln as the captain of the nation. By the end of the first stanza, Lincoln has become America's "dear father" as his death is revealed ("fallen cold and dead").[39] Vendler writes that the poem is told from the point of view of a young Union recruit, a "sailor-boy" who considers Lincoln like a "dear father". The American Civil War is almost over and "the prize we sought is almost won;/the port is almost near" with crowds awaiting the ship's arrival. Then, Lincoln is shot and dies. Vendler notes that in the first two stanzas the narrator is speaking to the dead captain, addressing him as "you". In the third stanza, he switches to reference Lincoln in the third person ("My captain does not answer").[23][40] Winwar describes the "roused voice of the people, incredulous at first, then tragically convinced that their Captain lay fallen".[46] Even as the poem mourns Lincoln, there is a sense of triumph that the ship of state has completed its journey.[76] Whitman encapsulates grief over Lincoln's death in one individual, the narrator of the poem.[77]

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