Whitman Poem

Whitman’s When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’d is a tributary poem to the memory of President Abraham Lincoln, felled as we all know by an assassin’s bullet. The speaker is in mourning for the loss of his beloved “star”, the star, of course, symbolizing the great leader. Whitman uses a variety of technical aspects to create his poem, with symbolism being the chief technique of choice to convey his themes. He uses three main symbols throughout the poem, the Lilac, the Star, and the Thrush. Since the poem is too lengthy to do justice to in the space allotted, this analysis will focus on the use of Whitman’s three primary symbolic images.

If we examine the first stanza we come to recognize that Whitman uses the lilac to represent eternal life. When the lilacs last bloomed, the “great star” in the sky “early droop’d”. No matter how many seasons of lilac blooming may come and go, the speaker will continue to mourn when they bloom as a reminder of the “early droop’d” star. Of course, the “great star” represents Abraham Lincoln. The second stanza goes deeper in emotion than the first. For in stanza two the speaker is consumed by his anguish from the untimely death of the “powerful western fallen star”. Of course, Whitman is not just using symbols here, he is using the technique of naturalism in that he is symbolizing the circle of life and death through objects of nature, much as life and death are a part of na

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Some common words found in the essay are:
Abraham Lincoln, Whitmans Christian, Lincoln Throughout, Star Thrush, Booth Lincoln, Dooryard Bloomd, stanza speaker, abraham lincoln, Signet NY, star course, life death, Lilacs Dooryard, lilacs dooryard bloomd, thrush sing, words speaker, fallen star, woe thrush, lincoln stanza, lilac bush,
Approximate Word count = 1051
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)

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