Week 4: Analysis of Whitman and Arnold

    In the interest of continuing our discussion of literary terms and how they are used within poetry, here is an analysis of two more poems included in Smith’s 100 Best Loved Poems.

Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!”

In this poem, the speaker is addressing his deceased captain, both celebrating the success of their voyage and mourning the fact that the captain passed away before he was able to see their success, explaining, “But the ship is anchor’d safe, its voyage closed and done; / From fearful trip, the victor ship, come in with object won” (lines 20-21). To begin with, crucial to the understanding of the poem is the period in which Walt Whitman composed this poem. Written shortly after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, it is generally accepted that the “captain” addressed in the poem is none other than Abraham Lincoln, making the “voyage” the Civil War being settled on the side of the Union with the effect of the end of slavery within the United States. When one gets into the details of the poem, the poem is composed of three stanzas, with each stanza using a structure of four longer lines followed by four shorter lines. The extended lines all seek to address the captain and explain all he has missed since his death, whereas the shorter lines all speak to the speaker's continued mourning for the loss of the captain. This structure, along with the rhythm and meter of the lines, adds to the musicality of the poem as it reads as a tribute to one of America's most prominent political figures.

Arnold’s “Dover Beach”

In a very different vein to Whitman’s more politically-minded poem, Matthew Arnold’s speaker focuses more on nature as they describe the surrounding sea in more Romantic images, highlighting, “The sea is calm to-night, / The tide is full, the moon lies fair” (lines 1-2). However, in the second half of the poem, the speaker twists this image of the sea by comparing it to the darkness and unpredictable nature of the surrounding world, turning the calm sea into “Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” (line 25). The poem ends with the speaker encouraging their “love” to create more good in the dark world that surrounds them (line 29). As such, the sea becomes a representation of both the good and evil in the world and in humanity itself. When it comes to what is important to understand about the poem, the reader must keep the classical allusions and the imagery of the poem within their view. Arnold spends an entire stanza discussing different classical allusions that seek to foreshadow the changing view of the sea from being “calm” to “roaring” by comparing it to Sophocles’ analysis of “human misery.” In addition to this, the imagery is crucial as it provides a large amount of the interpretation of the good and evil of the sea. The speaker provides clear images for the reader to interpret and understand to represent different ideas about the world and the nature of humanity.