“When Lilacs Last in
the Dooryard
Bloom'd”
by Walt Whitman
Ode to Lincoln
• On April 14, 1865,
Abraham Lincoln was
assassinated, marking one
of the most tragic
occurrences in our
nation’s history at the
close of our greatest war
• The war left 600,000 men
dead and 4 times that
amount wounded
• In the poem. Whitman not
only mourns the loss of one
of our greatest leaders, but
also the loss of a nation
Poetic Justice
• Whitman attempts to
use his poetic genius
to provide an elegy
for the dead as well
as the living, and
ultimately, provide
closure and hope
Transcendental Symbols
• Three symbols:
• Lilacs (flowers of spring, rebirth);
• the great star (really a planet, Venus,
but Lincoln as eternal);
• the solitary thrush (bird-poet,
Whitman).
Weaving
• The poem transforms grief into hope
by weaving together these three
symbols on a ‘field’. The weaving
together of these three symbols is a
symbol in itself, symbolic of a nation
picking up its broken remains and
rebuilding itself into a stronger union
Symbols in Action
• The lilac--Whitman breaks off a sprig of lilac, and as the
funeral procession passes through the nation, he drops it on the
passing coffin.
• The great star--It has "dropt in the night," leaving us in
darkness and despair, but it will return eternally each spring
in the heavens. The essential question is, however: what do we
do now?
• The solitary thrush--Central to the transformation is the
thrush, who sings "Death's outlet song of life." Whitman
finishes weaving together the symbols-"To the tally of my
soul,/Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,/With pure
deliberate notes spreading filling the night." The song
produces "panoramas of visions" for Whitman, and it is here, at
this moment in the poem, that a key revelation is made: "And I
saw askant the armies."
One of the greatest poems in the
English language
• Whitman envisions the traumatic nature of grief and the despair
of loss as felt by the living, as he moves from Lincoln to the
entire nation:
"I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them/. . .But I saw they were
not as was thought,/They themselves were fully at rest, they
suffer'd not,/The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother
suffer''d. . . ."
• This resolution allows for passage on, for hope and
renewal: "Passing the visions, passing the night," as he leaves
"the knowledge of death, and "the thought of death"
behind. Mourning given poetic utterance dissolves despair,
and we move on. . .the living.
"Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim."
Journal #7 (200 word minimum in
small-groups)
Collectively, much like after our country battled
through the loss of Lincoln and the Civil War, there is
a task at hand that constitutes people working together
to achieve a common goal.
Also, similar to our country, there are things that must
be woven together, or work in unison, to achieve that
goal. In a well-thought out journal, what three things
must be woven together in order for your group to
successfully achieve any given task? Why did you
choose those three things? How will you weave those
things together so that they bond to work in unison?
Explain your assertions.