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Critical Analysis Of Walt Whitman's Death Of Abraham Lincoln

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In his essay “Death of Abraham Lincoln”, Walt Whitman recalls the first time he ever saw the future president elect when Lincoln silently passed through New York City on his way to Washington D. C. Then Whitman remarks on the rapid succession of the well-known, recent, and still yet painful events of the Civil War. The strata of session sympathizers, the assassination of Lincoln at Ford’s theatre by John Wilkes Booth five days after the end of the Civil War, and the effect Lincoln’s death will forever have on our nation. Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist-in addition to publishing his poetry- was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. The Civil war lasted from 1861 to 1865 and was the result of four …show more content…

My Captain! Our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port Is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring…” Now in this essay Whitman compares Lincoln to the famous Captain Odyssesus the Greek hero of the Trojan War (which coincides with end of the Bronze Age) of Homer’s Odyssey, Book XII, when he says “-the dreaded Scylla of European interference, “In Greek mythology a monster that lived on one side of a narrow channel of water…”, and the Charybdis, “…opposite (Scylla’s) counterpart.” of the tremendously dangerous latent strata of secession sympathizers throughout the free States (447).” The idiom, “between Scylla and Charybdis” has come to mean being between two dangers, choosing either of which brings harm, known to us today as “between a rock and a hard place.” The Odyssey is a major ancient Greek epic poem, a sequel to the Illiad, the oldest extant work of Western literature composed near the end of the eighth century BC. The poem is fundamental to shaping Western

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