Blooming Trinity Essays - Literature, American Poetry,

Blooming Trinity English 1302.018 October 11, 2000 Blooming Trinity In the poem ?When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd?, by Walt Whitman, three important symbols are introduced. These symbols of a star, the lilac, and a bird exhibit Whitman's transcendentalism and serve as an allusion to Abraham Lincoln's life and death. Whitman's poetry, through these symbols, opens a window to the prevailing social attitudes, moral beliefs, and cultural disposition of his time through his allusions to President Lincoln. To understand Whitman's poetry one must first know something about the poet himself. Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in Long Island New York. Whitman disliked the idea of becoming a carpenter like his father and opted to seek his own fortune. The publishing of Leaves of Grass, Whitman's major literary work, was a major turning point in Whitman's life. ?Before, he was a teacher, printer, journalist, carpenter, and more. After, no matter what else he did, he was a poet? (Wiener 14). Whitman's strong opposition to slavery gave him problems later on as in life. Langston Hughes relates when he says ?[Whitman] had been an editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, but was fired there in 1948, because he refused to support Governor Cass of Michigan who advocated the continuation of slavery?(Wiener 196). Whitman greatly influenced many people of his time period but also was influenced by other writers. Russell Blankenship, a professor at the University of Washington, relates this fact when he says that Whitman was ?influenced by the revered American writer and philosopher Ralph Wal do Emerson? (Wiener 106). Emerson is commonly known as a transcendentalist. A transcendentalist is a person who is ?idealistic and optimistic. They believed they could find answers to whatever they were seeking. All they had to do was learn to read, through their intuition, the external symbols of nature and translate them into spiritual facts?(Brulatour). Whitman's transcendentalism is significant in ?When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd? because of the use of three symbols that serve as an allusion to Abraham Lincoln's life and death. President Abraham Lincoln was one of our country's greatest presidents. Lincoln's humble beginnings and rise to become arguably the most powerful person in the United States are a great representation of the American idea that anyone can become anything he aspires to be. One of Lincoln's major contributions was his involvement in the Civil War. As commander and chief of the Union army, Lincoln had the responsibility of working with the generals of the union armies to defeat the confederate armies. Lincoln, like Whitman, also felt that slavery was an abomination and ?on January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.? (White House.) After the Union army won the war, President Lincoln was assassinated while watching a play in Ford's Theatre, Washington. The nation's mourning was displayed as ?a crowd of mourners gathered at each railway station as the funeral train rolled westward toward the Illinois prairie, to S pringfield, where Abraham Lincoln was buried.?(Groiler). Whitman's poem, ?When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,? attempts to show the mourning of a nation as well as Whitman's personal sadness. In the poem ?Where Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd? the lilac has generated diverse interpretations. When I first read ?Where Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd? I thought of the lilacs as representing beauty and love, presumably for the late president. Yet, with further reading, I found that there are several other interpretations. Edwin Miller, a professor of English at New York University and recognized Whitman scholar, interprets the ?sprig as the season of rebirth, the sense of smell (The ?mastering odor'), day and physical life, love as the remembrance of death (the lilac as a floral tribute on the coffin)? (Miller 187). Another interpretation, by Kenneth Burke, author of ?Policy Made Personal: Whitman's Verse and Prose ? Salient Traits?, states ?. . . the broken ?sprig' of lilac as the star ?dropt in the night'; the ?perfume strong' of the lilacs ?in the dooryard fronting an old farm-house,' the odor of the ?bouquets' placed upon the casket,? ( Miller 188). Both interpret ations by Burke and by Miller indicate that the lilac is most likely representative of the flowers