Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" Quiz

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

An extended metaphor is a metaphor (a direct comparison between two things not using the terms "like" or "as") that is sustained and developed in some detail throughout all or part of a work. Walt Whitman's poem is an extended metaphor for the assassination of the sixteenth U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln.

While Whitman never met Lincoln in person, he admired him deeply and was profoundly affected by his assassination. This is actually one of four poems Walt Whitman wrote about the death of Abraham Lincoln.

The others are "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", "Hush'd Be the Camps To-day", and "This Dust was Once the Man".

Answer: fearful

The "fearful trip" is a metaphor for the American Civil War. During the Civil War, Walt Whitman moved from New York to Washington, D.C. and volunteered at hospitals there. He made the move because he read his brother's name in the list of casualties from the Battle of Fredericksburg.

When he got there, however, he found his brother George with only a scratch on his face. But he decided to stay as a hospital volunteer when he saw how poorly the wounded and sick were being treated.

Answer: Preservation of the Union

The ship here is a metaphor for the state (think "ship of state"), which has gone on a "fearful trip" - the Civil War - and emerged victorious, thus preserving the Union. The war effectively ended on April 9, 1865 when Confederate General Robert E. Lee formally surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House.

The rest of the generals surrender gradually in turn, with the last of the surrenders occurring in June.

Answer: exalting

The people are celebrating the end to the Civil War:

"The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won..."

Whitman's 1865 book "Drum-taps" ruminates on the conflict. It included poems expressing Unionist pride or, like "Song of the Banner at Daybreak," serving as a rallying cry for the North. This poem was included in the 1865 pamphlet "Sequel to Drum-taps".

Answer: dead

Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865 by actor and Confederate spy John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln attended "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre, a mere five days after victory at the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse. Ulysseys S. Grant was also supposed to be in attendance, and Booth had intended to assassinate him also, but, at the last minute, Grant decided instead to go see his children in New Jersey.

That evening, Booth snuck into Lincoln's theater box and shot him in the back of the head. Booth then stabbed another man who was a guest in Lincoln's box to escape. Lincoln died some hours later, on April 15, in Petersen House across the street, where he was taken for treatment.

Answer: the flag

This is a reference to the way U.S. flags are flown at half-mast whenever the nation is in a state of mourning. The trilling bugle is likely a reference to the tradition of playing "Taps" at military funerals, which originated in 1862.

Answer: pale and still

"Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will."

According to literary critic Stefan Schöberlein, this image of the narrator placing his arm behind the captain's head may be meant to recall Mary cradling Jesus after his crucifixion as depicted in art such as Correggio's "Deposition" (1525).

Answer: amphibrach

An iamb consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in: "our FEARful TRIP is DONE" or "the PRIZE we SOUGHT is WON."

Although Whitman uses iambic meter in several lines, he varies the meter throughout the poem by using amphibrach, which is a metrical foot containing a stressed syllable between two unstressed syllables, as in "O CAPtain my CAPtain!" By breaking loose from the iambic meter, here, Whitman emotionally emphasizes the importance of the captain.

Answer: tread

Jubilance over the recent victory in war is contrasted with the solemnity and grief of loss.

This poem was first published under the title of "My Captain" on November 4, 1865 in The Saturday Press.

Answer: Dead Poet's Society

"Dead Poet's Society" was released in 1989. Robin Williams played an English teacher, John Keating, at a posh boarding school. He introduces his students to Whitman's poem in his very first class. Later, when he's fired from the school, he returns to class to collect his belongings. As he exits, his students all stand on their desks, proclaiming "O Captain! My Captain!"