O Captain! My Captain!

Walt Whitman established his reputation as a poet in the late 1850s to early 1860s with the 1855 release of Leaves of Grass. Whitman intended to write a distinctly American epic and developed a free verse style inspired by the cadences of the King James Bible.{{sfn|Miller|1962|p=155}}{{sfn|Kaplan|1980|p=187}} The brief volume, first released in 1855, was considered controversial by some,{{sfn|Loving|1999|p=414}} with critics particularly objecting to Whitman's blunt depictions of sexuality and the poem's "homoerotic overtones".{{Cite web|title=CENSORED: Wielding the Red Pen|url=https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/show/censored/walkthrough/bowdlerized|access-date=October 28, 2020|website=University of Virginia Library Online Exhibits}} Whitman's work received significant attention following praise for Leaves of Grass by American transcendentalist lecturer and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson.{{sfn|Callow|1992|p=232}}{{sfn|Reynolds|1995|p=340}}

At the start of the American Civil War, Whitman moved from New York to Washington, D.C., where he held a series of government jobs—first with the Army Paymaster's Office and later with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.{{sfn|Loving|1999|p=283}}{{sfn|Callow|1992|p=293}} He volunteered in the army hospitals as a nurse.{{sfn|Peck|2015|p=64}} Whitman's poetry was informed by his wartime experience, maturing into reflections on death and youth, the brutality of war, and patriotism.{{sfn|Whitman|1961|pp=1:68–70}} Whitman's brother, Union Army soldier George Washington Whitman, was taken prisoner in Virginia in September 1864, and held for five months in Libby Prison, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Richmond.{{sfn|Loving|1975|p=18}} On February 24, 1865, George was granted a furlough to return home because of his poor health, and Whitman travelled to his mother's home in New York to visit his brother.{{sfn|Loving|1999|pp=281–283}} While visiting Brooklyn, Whitman contracted to have his collection of Civil War poems, Drum-Taps, published.{{sfn|Price|Folsom|2005|p=91}} In June 1865, James Harlan, the Secretary of the Interior, found a copy of Leaves of Grass and, considering the collection vulgar, fired Whitman from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.{{Sfn|Gailey|2006|p=420}}

{{Main|Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln}}

Although they never met, Whitman saw Abraham Lincoln several times between 1861 and 1865, sometimes at close quarters. The first time was when Lincoln stopped in New York City in 1861 on his way to Washington. Whitman noticed the president-elect's "striking appearance" and "unpretentious dignity", and trusted Lincoln's "supernatural tact" and "idiomatic Western genius".{{Cite web|last=Griffin|first=Martin|date=May 4, 2015|title=How Whitman Remembered Lincoln|url=https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/how-whitman-remembered-lincoln/|access-date=October 12, 2020|website=The New York Times|department=Opinionator|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite encyclopedia|last=Eiselein|first=Gregory|title='Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865)' (Criticism)|url=https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_280.html|access-date=October 12, 2020|editor-last=LeMaster|editor-first=J. R.|editor-first2=Donald D.|editor-last2=Kummings|date=1998|via=The Walt Whitman Archive|publisher=Garland Publishing|location=New York City|ref={{harvid|Eiselein|1998b}}}} He admired the president, writing in October 1863: "I love the President personally."{{Sfn|Loving|1999|p=288}} Whitman considered himself and Lincoln to be "afloat in the same stream" and "rooted in the same ground". Whitman and Lincoln shared similar views on slavery and the Union, and similarities have been noted in their literary styles and inspirations. Whitman later declared: "Lincoln gets almost nearer me than anybody else."

There is an account of Lincoln's reading Whitman's Leaves of Grass poetry collection in his office,{{harvnb|Matteson|2021|p=309}}: "A clerk in Lincoln's law office in Springfield recalled that before he became president, Lincoln had read aloud from Leaves of Grass to his office mates," citing {{harvnb|Rankin|1916|pp=125–126}}. and another of the president's saying "Well, he looks like a man," upon seeing Whitman in Washington, D.C.{{harvnb|Matteson|2021|p=309}}: citing {{harvnb|Donaldson|1896|p=58}}. According to scholar John Matteson: "[t]he truth of both these stories is hard to establish."{{Sfn|Matteson|2021|p=309}} Lincoln's death on April 15, 1865, greatly moved Whitman, who wrote several poems in tribute to the fallen president. "O Captain! My Captain!", "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day", and "This Dust Was Once the Man" were all written on Lincoln's death. While these poems do not specifically mention Lincoln, they turn the assassination of the president into a sort of martyrdom.

File:Whitman Poem O Captain My Captain 09MAR1887 handwritten.jpg of Whitman's poem—signed and dated March 9, 1887—as published in 1881]]

{{quote|

O Captain! 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:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,{{Efn|Originally "Not you the little spot"{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|pp=300–301}}}}

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;{{Efn|Originally "This arm I push beneath you"{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|pp=300–301}}}}

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;

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my captain lies,{{Efn|Originally "Walk the spot my captain lies"{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|pp=300–301}}}}

Fallen cold and dead.

|author=|title=|source=}}

File:Walt Whitman's Lecture on Lincoln Invitation 1886.jpg

Literary critic Helen Vendler thinks it likely that Whitman wrote the poem before "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", considering it a direct response to "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day".{{Sfn|Schöberlein|2018|p=450}} An early draft of the poem is written in free verse.{{Sfn|Gailey|2006|p=421}} "My Captain" was first published in The Saturday Press on November 4, 1865.{{Efn|The Saturday Press shut down around two weeks after publishing the poem.{{Sfn|Kaplan|1980|p=244}}}}{{Sfn|Gailey|2006|p=420}}{{Sfn|Blodgett|1953|p=456}} Around the same time, it was included in Whitman's book, Sequel to Drum-Taps{{Em dash}}publication in The Saturday Press was considered a "teaser" for the book. Although Sequel to Drum-Taps was first published in early October 1865,{{Sfn|Oliver|2005|p=77}} the copies were not ready for distribution until December.{{Sfn|Allen|1997|p=86}} The first publication of the poem had different punctuation than Whitman intended, and he corrected before its next publication. It was also included in the 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass.{{Sfn|Gailey|2006|p=420}}{{Sfn|Eiselein|1998|p=473}} Whitman revised the poem several times during his life,{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|p=301}} including in his 1871 collection Passage to India. Its final republication by Whitman was in the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass.{{Sfn|Eiselein|1998|p=473}}

Whitman's friend Horace Traubel wrote in his book With Walt Whitman in Camden that Whitman read a newspaper article that said "If Walt Whitman had written a volume of My Captains instead of filling a scrapbasket with waste and calling it a book the world would be better off today and Walt Whitman would have some excuse for living."{{Sfn|Traubel|1908|p=304}} Whitman responded to the article on September 11, 1888, saying: "Damn My Captain{{nbsp}}[...] I'm almost sorry I ever wrote the poem," though he admitted that it "had certain emotional immediate reasons for being".{{Sfn|Traubel|1908|p=304}}{{Sfn|Kaplan|1980|p=309}} In the 1870s and 1880s, Whitman gave several lectures over eleven years on Lincoln's death. He usually began or ended the lectures by reciting "My Captain", despite his growing prominence meaning he could have read a different poem.{{Sfn|Pannapacker|2004|p=101}}{{Sfn|Price|Folsom|2005|p=121}}{{Sfn|Parini|2004|p=378}}{{Cite journal|last=Hoffman|first=Tyler|date=2011|title=Walt Whitman "Live": Performing the Public Sphere|journal=Walt Whitman Quarterly Review|volume=28|issue=4|pages=193–194|doi=10.13008/2153-3695.1979|issn=2153-3695|doi-access=free}} In the late 1880s, Whitman earned money by selling autographed copies of "My Captain"—purchasers included John Hay, Charles Aldrich, and S. Weir Mitchell.{{cite journal |last=Stallybrass |first=Peter |date=2019 |title=Walt Whitman's Slips: Manufacturing Manuscript |journal=Walt Whitman Quarterly Review |volume=37 |issue=1 |issn=2153-3695 |pages=66–106 |doi=10.13008/0737-0679.2361|doi-access=free }}

The poem rhymes using an AABBCDED rhyme scheme,{{Sfn|Genoways|2006|p=534}} and is designed for recitation.{{Sfn|Schöberlein|2018|p=473}} It is written in nine quatrains, organized in three stanzas. Each stanza has two quatrains of four seven-beat lines, followed by a four-line refrain, which changes slightly from stanza to stanza, in a tetrameter/trimeter ballad beat.{{Sfn|Schöberlein|2018|p=450}}{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|pp=301–302}} Historian Daniel Mark Epstein wrote in 2004 that he considers the structure of the poem to be "uncharacteristically mechanical, formulaic".{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|p=300}} He goes on to describe the poem as a conventional ballad, comparable to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's writing in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and much of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's work, especially "In Memoriam A.H.H."{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|pp=301–302}} Literary critic Jerome Loving wrote to the opposite effect in 1999, saying that the structure gave "My Captain" a "sing-song" quality, evocative of folk groups like the Hutchinson Family Singers and Cheney Family Singers.{{Sfn|Parini|2004|p=378}}{{Sfn|Loving|1999|p=287}} The scholar Ted Genoways argued that the poem retains distinctive features characteristic to Whitman, such as varying line length.{{Sfn|Genoways|2006|p=534}} Whitman very rarely wrote poems that rhymed;{{Efn|"My Captain", "The Singer in the Prison" (1869), and "Ethiopia Saluting the Colors" (1871) are considered Whitman's most 'conventional' works.{{Cite journal|last=Schwiebert|first=John E.|date=1990|title=A Delicate Balance: Whitman's Stanzaic Poems|journal=Walt Whitman Quarterly Review|volume=7|issue=3|pages=116–130|doi=10.13008/2153-3695.1250|issn=2153-3695|doi-access=free}}}} in a review contemporary to Whitman, The Atlantic suggested that Whitman was rising "above himself" by writing a poem unlike his others. The writer elaborated that, while his previous work had represented "unchecked nature", the rhymes of "My Captain" were a sincere expression of emotion.

The author Frances Winwar argued in her 1941 book American Giant: Walt Whitman and His Times that "in the simple ballad rhythm beat the heart of the folk".{{Sfn|Coyle|1962|p=191}} Vendler concludes that Whitman's use of a simple style is him saying that "soldiers and sailors have a right to verse written for them". Using elements of popular poetry enabled Whitman to create a poem that he felt would be understood by the general public.{{Sfn|Schöberlein|2018|p=450}} In 2009, academic Amanda Gailey argued that Whitman—who, writing the poem, had just been fired from his government job—adopted a conventional style to attract a wider audience. She added that Whitman wrote to heal the nation, crafting a poem the country would find "ideologically and aesthetically satisfactory".{{Sfn|Gailey|2006|pp=420–421}} William Pannapacker, a literature professor, similarly described the poem in 2004 as a "calculated critical and commercial success".{{Sfn|Pannapacker|2004|p=22}} In 2003, the author Daniel Aaron wrote that "Death enshrined the Commoner [Lincoln], [and] Whitman placed himself and his work in the reflected limelight".{{Sfn|Aaron|2003|p=71}} As an elegy to Lincoln, the English professor Faith Barrett wrote in 2005 that the style makes it "timeless", following in the tradition of elegies like "Lycidas" and "Adonais".{{Sfn|Barrett|2005|p=87}}

The poem was Whitman's most popular during his lifetime, and the only one to be anthologized before his death.{{Sfn|Kaplan|1980|p=309}} The historian Michael C. Cohen noted that "My Captain" was "carried beyond the limited circulation of Leaves of Grass and into the popular heart"; its popularity remade "history in the form of a ballad".{{Sfn|Cohen|2015|p=163}} Initial reception to the poem was very positive. In early 1866, a reviewer in the Boston Commonwealth wrote that the poem was the most moving dirge for Lincoln ever written,{{Sfn|Gailey|2006|p=421}}{{Cite news|last=Sanborn|first=Franklin Benjamin|date=February 24, 1866|title=Review of Drum-Taps|url=https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/reviews/drumtaps/anc.00059.html|access-date=December 3, 2020|via=The Walt Whitman Archive|work=The Boston Commonwealth|author-link=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn}} [originally unsigned] adding that Drum Taps "will do much{{nbsp}}[...] to remove the prejudice against Mr. Whitman in many minds". Similarly, after reading Sequel to Drum Taps, the author William Dean Howells became convinced that Whitman had cleaned the "old channels of their filth" and poured "a stream of blameless purity" through; he would become a prominent defender of Whitman.{{Sfn|Pannapacker|2004|p=22}}{{Sfn|Loving|1999|p=305}} One of the earliest criticisms of the poem was authored by Edward P. Mitchell in 1881 who considered the rhymes "crude".{{Sfn|Genoways|2006|pp=534–535}} "My Captain" is considered uncharacteristic of Whitman's poetry,{{Sfn|Coyle|1962|p=235}}{{Sfn|Pannapacker|2004|p=22}} and it was praised initially as a departure from his typical style. Author Julian Hawthorne wrote in 1891 that the poem was touching partially because it was such a stylistic departure.{{cite journal|journal=Walt Whitman Quarterly Review|title='I didn't like his books': Julian Hawthorne on Whitman|last=Scharnhorst|first=Gary|date=2009|page=153|issn=2153-3695|volume=26|issue = 3|doi=10.13008/2153-3695.1894|doi-access=free}} In 1892, The Atlantic wrote that "My Captain" was universally accepted as Whitman's "one great contribution to the world's literature",{{Cite web|last=Scudder|first=Horace Elisha|date=June 1892|title=Whitman|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1892/06/whitman/376179/|access-date=October 11, 2020|website=The Atlantic|language=en-US|issn=2151-9463}} and George Rice Carpenter, a scholar and biographer of Whitman, said in 1903 that the poem was possibly the best work of Civil War poetry, praising its imagery as "beautiful".{{Sfn|Coyle|1962|p=171}}

Reception remained positive into the early 20th century. Epstein considers it to have been one of the ten most popular English language poems of the 20th century.{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|p=302}} In his book Canons by Consensus, Joseph Csicsila reached a similar conclusion, noting that the poem was "one of the two or three most highly praised of Whitman's poems during the 1920s and 1930s"; he also wrote that the poem's verse form and emotional sincerity appealed to "more conservative-minded critics".{{Sfn|Csicsila|2004|p=|pp=57–58}} In 1916, Henry B. Rankin,{{Sfn|Coyle|1962|p=64}} a biographer of Lincoln,{{Cite news|date=1927-08-16|title=Lincoln Biographer Dies; Henry B. Rankin, a student of War President, Lived to Be 90|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1927/08/16/archives/lincoln-biographer-dies-henry-b-rankin-a-student-of-war-president.html|access-date=2020-12-29|issn=0362-4331}} wrote that "My Captain" became "the nation's{{Em dash}}aye, the world's{{Em dash}}funeral dirge of our First American".{{Sfn|Rankin|1916|p=127}} The Literary Digest in 1919 deemed it the "most likely to live forever" of Whitman's poems,{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qKk5AQAAMAAJ|journal=The Literary Digest|date=April 5, 1919|volume=61|title=Walt For Our Day|pages=28–29|quote=[. . .] the man in the street will confess that he knows only one bit of Whitman: 'O Captain! My Captain!' Well, he knows the one that is most likely to live forever.|last1=Wheeler|first1=Edward Jewitt|last2=Funk|first2=Isaac Kaufman|last3=Woods|first3=William Seaver|last4=Draper|first4=Arthur Stimson|last5=Funk|first5=Wilfred John}} and the 1936 book American Life in Literature went further, describing it as the best American poem.{{Sfn|Hubbell|1936|p=155}} Author James O'Donnell Bennett echoed that, writing that the poem represented a perfect "threnody", or mourning poem.{{Sfn|Bennett|1927|p=350}} The poem was not unanimously praised during this period: one critic wrote that "My Captain" was "more suitable for recitation before an enthusiastically uncritical audience than for its place in the Oxford Book of English Verse".{{Sfn|Csicsila|2004|p=|pp=57–58}}

Beginning in the 1920s, Whitman became increasingly respected by critics, and by 1950 he was one of the most prominent American authors. Poetry anthologies began to include poetry that was considered more "authentic" to Whitman's poetic style, and, as a result, "My Captain" became less popular. In an analysis of poetry anthologies, Joseph Csicsila found that, although "My Captain" had been Whitman's most frequently published poem, shortly after the end of World War II it "all but disappeared" from American anthologies, and had "virtually disappeared" after 1966.{{Sfn|Csicsila|2004|p=|pp=58–60, 63}} William E. Barton wrote in Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman, published in 1965, that the poem was "the least like Whitman of anything Whitman ever wrote; yet it is his highest literary monument".{{Sfn|Barton|1965|p=174}}

Critical opinion of the poem began to shift in the middle of the 20th century. In 1980, Whitman's biographer Justin Kaplan called the poem "thoroughly conventional".{{Sfn|Kaplan|1980|p=309}} The literary critic F. O. Matthiessen criticized the poem, writing in 1941 that its early popularity was an "ample and ironic comment" on how Whitman's more authentic poetry could not reach a wide audience. Michael C. Cohen, a literature professor, said Matthiessen's writing exemplified 20th-century opinion on the poem.{{Sfn|Matthiessen|1968|p=618}}{{Sfn|Cohen|2015|p=163}} In the 1997 book A Reader's Guide to Walt Whitman, scholar Gay Wilson Allen concluded that the poem's symbols were "trite", the rhythm "artificial", and the rhymes "erratic".{{Sfn|Allen|1997|p=86}}

Negative perspectives on the poem continued into the 21st century. In 2000, Helen Vendler wrote that because Whitman "was bent on registering individual response as well as the collective wish expressed in 'Hush'd be the camps', he took on the voice of a single representative sailor silencing his own idiosyncratic voice". Elsewhere, she states that two "stylistic features—its meter and its use of refrain—mark 'O Captain' as a designedly democratic and populist poem".{{Cite journal|last=Vendler|first=Helen|date=Winter 2000|title=Poetry and the Mediation of Value: Whitman on Lincoln|url=http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.act2080.0039.101|journal=Michigan Quarterly Review|volume=XXXIX|issue=1|hdl=2027/spo.act2080.0039.101|issn=2153-3695}} Four years later, Epstein wrote that he struggled to believe that the same writer wrote both "Lilacs" and "O Captain! My Captain!".{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|p=299}} Poet Robert Pinsky told the New York Times News Service in 2009 that he considered the poem "not very good",{{Cite web|first=Jennifer|last=Schuessler|date=December 13, 2009|title=Odes to the chief: Poems on presidents rhapsodize, ridicule|url=https://www.deseret.com/2009/12/13/20358389/odes-to-the-chief-poems-on-presidents-rhapsodize-ridicule|access-date=October 29, 2020|website=Deseret News|issn=0745-4724|language=en}} and a year later another poet, C. K. Williams, concluded that the poem was a "truly awful piece of near doggerel triteness" that deserved derisive criticism.{{Sfn|Williams|2010|p=171}} Meanwhile, the 2004 Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature entry on Whitman suggests that critiques about the poem's rhythm are unfair.{{Sfn|Parini|2004|p=378}}

Academic Stefan Schöberlein writes that—with the exception Helen Vendler's work—the poem's sentimentality has resulted in it being mostly "ignored in English speaking academia".{{Sfn|Schöberlein|2018|p=450}} Vendler writes that the poem utilizes elements of war journalism, such as "the bleeding drops of red" and "fallen cold and dead". The poem has imagery relating to the sea throughout.{{Sfn|Genoways|2006|p=535}} Genoways considers the best "turn of phrase" in the poem to be line 12, where Whitman describes a "swaying mass", evocative of both a funeral and religious service.{{Sfn|Genoways|2006|p=535}}

The poem's nautical references allude to Admiral Nelson's victory and death at the Battle of Trafalgar.{{Cite web |last=Greasley |first=Philip A. |date=2000 |title=Whitman, Walt |url=https://sites.williams.edu/searchablesealit/w/whitman-walt/ |access-date=2021-10-16 |website=Searchable Sea Literature}}

The poem describes the United States as a ship, a metaphor that Whitman had previously used in "Death in the School-Room".{{Sfn|Schöberlein|2018|p=473}} This metaphor of a ship of state has been often used by authors.{{Sfn|Podlecki|2011|p=69}} Whitman himself had written a letter on March 19, 1863, that compared the head of state to a ship's captain.{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|p=299}} Whitman had also likely read newspaper reports that Lincoln had dreamed of a ship under full sail the night before his assassination;{{Sfn|Epstein|2004|p=299}} the imagery was allegedly a recurring dream of Lincoln's before significant moments in his life.{{Sfn|Lewis|1994|p=297}}

"My Captain" begins by describing Lincoln as the captain of the nation. By the end of the first stanza, Lincoln has become America's "dear father" as his death is revealed ("fallen cold and dead").{{Sfn|Schöberlein|2018|p=473}} Vendler writes that the poem is told from the point of view of a young Union recruit, a "sailor-boy" who considers Lincoln like a "dear father". The American Civil War is almost over and "the prize we sought is almost won;/the port is almost near" with crowds awaiting the ship's arrival. Then, Lincoln is shot and dies. Vendler notes that in the first two stanzas the narrator is speaking to the dead captain, addressing him as "you". In the third stanza, he switches to reference Lincoln in the third person ("My captain does not answer").{{Sfn|Schöberlein|2018|p=450}} Winwar describes the "roused voice of the people, incredulous at first, then tragically convinced that their Captain lay fallen".{{Sfn|Coyle|1962|p=191}} Even as the poem mourns Lincoln, there is a sense of triumph that the ship of state has completed its journey.{{cite journal|title=Elegy for a fallen leader|first=Philip Brandt|last=George|journal=American History|volume=38|issue=5|date=December 2003|page=53}} Whitman encapsulates grief over Lincoln's death in one individual, the narrator of the poem.{{Sfn|Krieg|2006|p=400}}

Cohen argues that the metaphor serves to "mask the violence of the Civil War" and project "that concealment onto the exulting crowds". He concluded that the poem "abstracted the war into social affect and collective sentiment, converting public violence into a memory of shared loss by remaking history in the shape of a ballad".{{Sfn|Cohen|2015|p=|pp=162–163}}

File:Correggio deposition.jpg's 1525 Deposition{{Sfn|Schöberlein|2018|p=473}}]]

In the second and third stanzas, according to Schöberlein, Whitman invokes religious imagery, making Lincoln a "messianic figure". Schöberlein compares the imagery of "My Captain" to the Lamentation of Christ, specifically Correggio's 1525 Deposition. The poem's speaker places its "arm beneath [Lincoln's] head" in the same way that "Mary cradled Jesus" after his crucifixion. With Lincoln's death, "the sins of America are absolved into a religio-sentimental, national family".{{Sfn|Schöberlein|2018|p=473}}

The poem, which never mentions Lincoln by name, has frequently been invoked following the deaths of a head of state. After Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945, actor Charles Laughton read "O Captain! My Captain!" during a memorial radio broadcast.{{Sfn|Brown|2004|p=124}} When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, "O Captain! My Captain!" was played on many radio stations, extending the 'ship of state' metaphor to Kennedy.{{cite journal|page=63|title=Los Angeles, 1960: John F. Kennedy and Whitman's Ship of Democracy|last=Blake|first=David Haven|volume=28|date=2010|issn=2153-3695|journal=Walt Whitman Quarterly Review|issue=1–2|doi=10.13008/2153-3695.1952|doi-access=free}} Following the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the poem was translated into Hebrew and put to music by Naomi Shemer.{{Cite web|date=June 29, 2004|title=Naomi Shemer, 74; Wrote Unofficial Israeli National Anthem|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jun-29-me-passings29.2-story.html|access-date=October 12, 2020|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US|issn=2165-1736}}{{Cite news|last=Saxon|first=Wolfgang|date=June 29, 2004|title=Naomi Shemer, 74, Poet and Composer, Dies|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/arts/naomi-shemer-74-poet-and-composer-dies.html|access-date=October 12, 2020|issn=0362-4331}}

The poem was set to music by David Broza and the song was released on his album Stone Doors.{{cite web |title=David Broza: Making the Music the Poem Wants |url=https://poets.org/text/david-broza-making-music-poem-wants |access-date=21 January 2023 |website=POETS.ORG}} The poem was also set to music by Kurt Weill as one of his "Four Walt Whitman Songs".[https://www.kwf.org/works/walt-whitman-songs-for-voice-and-piano/ Four Walt Whitman Songs. For voice and piano. Texts by Walt Whitman]

The poem appears in the 1989 American film Dead Poets Society.{{Cite news|last=Buckmaster|first=Luke|date=July 16, 2019|title=Dead Poets Society: 30 years on Robin Williams' stirring call to 'seize the day' endures|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/16/dead-poets-society-30-years-on-robin-williams-stirring-call-to-seize-the-day-endures |access-date=October 12, 2020|issn=0261-3077}} John Keating (played by Robin Williams), an English teacher at the Welton Academy boarding school,{{Sfn|Dimare|2011|p=119}} introduces his students to the poem in their first class.{{Sfn|Rush|2012|p=26}}{{Cite web|date=August 13, 2014|title=Robin Williams' best Dead Poets Society quotes: 'Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary' |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/robin-williams-best-dead-poets-society-quotes-carpe-hear-it-carpe-carpe-diem-seize-day-boys-9663800.html |access-date=October 12, 2020|website=The Independent|language=en|last=Denham|first=Jess|issn=0951-9467}} Keating is later fired from the school. As Keating returns to collect his belongings, the students stand on their desks and address Keating as "O Captain! My Captain!" The use of "My Captain" in the film is considered "ironic" by UCLA literature professor Michael C. Cohen because the students are taking a stand against "repressive conformity" but using a poem intentionally written to be conventional.{{Sfn|Cohen|2015|p=163}}

In the 21st century, "My Captain" has continued to be an often-quoted poem, including on social media.{{Cite web |last=Bateman |first=Micah |last2=Matheis |first2=Caitlin |date=May 20, 2024 |title=Songs of Ourselves: The Circulations and Citations of Nineteenth-Century American Poetry on Twitter |url=https://c19datacollective.com/data/songs-of-ourselves/ |access-date=2025-03-12 |website=Nineteenth-Century Data Collective |language=en}} After Robin Williams' suicide in 2014, the hashtag "#ocaptainmycaptain" began trending on Twitter and fans paid tribute to Williams by recreating the "O Captain! My Captain!" scene.{{Cite web|last=Idato|first=Michael|date=August 13, 2014|title=Robin Williams death: Jimmy Fallon fights tears, pays tribute with 'Oh Captain, My Captain'|url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/robin-williams-death-jimmy-fallon-fights-tears-pays-tribute-with-oh-captain-my-captain-20140814-103uwh.html|access-date=October 12, 2020|website=The Sydney Morning Herald|language=en|issn=0312-6315}} Luke Buckmaster, a film critic, wrote in The Guardian that "some people, maybe even most people, now associate Whitman's verse first and foremost with a movie rather than a poem". The title of the poem was also often quoted on Twitter as US President Barack Obama left office and the office transitioned to Donald Trump.

• Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln

{{Notelist}}

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin|2}}

• {{Cite book |last=Aaron |first=Daniel |date=2003 |title=The Unwritten War: American Writers and the Civil War |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CSB6CgAAQBAJ&q=%22Whitman+placed+himself+and+his+work+in+the+reflected+limelight%22&pg=PA71 |location=Tuscaloosa, Alabama |publisher=University of Alabama Press |isbn=978-0-8173-5002-4 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Allen |first=Gay Wilson |author-link=Gay Wilson Allen |date=1997 |title=A Reader's Guide to Walt Whitman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jOiQ0QzvmqoC&q=%22Sequel+to+drum-taps%22+%22O+Captain%21+My+Captain%21%22&pg=PA86 |location=Syracuse, NY |publisher=Syracuse University Press |isbn=978-0-8156-0488-4 |pages=86, 197 |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Barton |first=William E. |date=1965 |orig-year=1928 |title=Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman |location=Port Washington, NY |publisher=Kennikat Press |isbn=9780804600187 |oclc=1145780794 |language=English}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Barrett |first=Faith |date=Winter 2005 |title=Addresses to a Divided Nation: Images of War in Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman |url= |journal=Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory |volume=61 |issue=4 |pages=67–99 |doi=10.1353/arq.2005.0005 |issn=1558-9595 |s2cid=161131368 |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Bennett |first=James O'Donnell |author-link=James O'Donnell Bennett |date=1927 |title=Much Loved Books: Best Sellers of the Ages |url=https://archive.org/details/muchlovedbooksbe001874mbp |location=New York |publisher=Boni and Liveright: Publishers |pages=[https://archive.org/details/muchlovedbooksbe001874mbp/page/n357/mode/2up 339–351] |oclc=1374171 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Blodgett |first=Harold W. |date=1953 |title=The Best of Whitman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LYZbAAAAMAAJ&q=%22O+captain!+My+Captain!%22+%22November+4,+1865%22 |location=New York |publisher=Ronald Press Company |pages= |language=en |oclc=938884255 |isbn=978-0871409799}}
• {{Cite book |last=Brown |first=Robert J. |date=2004 |title=Manipulating the Ether: The Power of Broadcast Radio in Thirties America |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |publisher=McFarland |pages= |isbn=978-0-7864-2066-7}}
• {{Cite book |last=Callow |first=Philip |year=1992 |title=From Noon to Starry Night: A Life of Walt Whitman |url=https://archive.org/details/fromnoontostarry0000call |url-access=registration |location=Chicago |publisher=Ivan R. Dee |pages= |oclc=644050069 |isbn=1566631335}}
• {{Cite book |last=Csicsila |first=Joseph |date=2004 |chapter=Nineteenth-Century Poetry: Whitman, Dickinson, Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Larcom, Thaxter, Lanier, Tabb |title=Canons by Consensus: Critical Trends and American Literature Anthologies |location=Tuscaloosa, Alabama |publisher=University of Alabama Press |pages=55–85 |isbn=978-0-8173-8178-3 |oclc=320324064}}
• {{Cite book |last=Cohen |first=Michael C. |date=2015 |title=The Social Lives of Poems in Nineteenth-Century America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9a6tCQAAQBAJ |location=Philadelphia |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-9131-5 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Coyle |first=William |date=1962 |title=The Poet and the President: Whitman's Lincoln Poems |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tX9bAAAAMAAJ |location=New York |publisher=Odyssey Press |pages= |language=en |oclc=2591078}}
• {{Cite book |last=Donaldson |first=Thomas |year=1896 |title=Walt Whitman the Man |url=https://archive.org/details/waltwhitmanman00donagoog |location=New York |publisher=Francis P. Harper |isbn=9780841418837 |oclc=217422}} Reprint: Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1973. {{Isbn|9780841418837}}.
• {{Cite book |last=Dimare |first=Philip C. |date=2011 |title=Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=miascUWIa0UC&q=John+Keating+welton&pg=PA119 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, California |pages= |isbn=978-1-59884-296-8 |oclc=741122834 |language=en}}
• {{Cite encyclopedia |last=Eiselein |first=Gregory |date=1998 |title='O Captain! My Captain!' (1865) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fKJAW8Bn9ukC&pg=PA473 |editor-last=LeMaster |editor-first=J. R. |editor-last2=Kummings |editor-first2=Donald D. |encyclopedia=The Routledge Encyclopedia of Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |page=473 |isbn=978-0815318767 |oclc=921221885}}
• {{Cite book |last=Epstein |first=Daniel Mark |date=2004 |title=Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington |publisher=Ballantine Books |edition=1st |location=New York |pages= |oclc=52980509 |isbn=0-345-45799-4}}
• {{Cite book |last=Gailey |first=Amanda |date=2006 |chapter=The Publishing History of Leaves of Grass |editor-last=Kummings |editor-first=Donald D. |title=A Companion to Walt Whitman |location=Hoboken, New Jersey |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |pages=409–438 |isbn=978-1-4051-2093-7 |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Genoways |first=Ted |date=2006 |chapter=Civil War Poems in 'Drum-Taps' and 'Memories of President Lincoln' |editor-last=Kummings |editor-first=Donald D. |title=A Companion to Walt Whitman |location=Hoboken, New Jersey |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4051-2093-7 |pages=522–537 |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |editor-last=Hubbell |editor-first=Jay B. |date=1936 |title=American Life in Literature |url= |location=New York |publisher=Harper |pages= |oclc=977322422}}
• {{Cite book |last=Kaplan |first=Justin |date=1980 |title=Walt Whitman: A Life |edition=1st |location=New York |publisher=Simon & Schuster |pages= |isbn=0-06-053511-3 |oclc=51984882}}
• {{Cite book |last=Krieg |first=Joann P. |date=2006 |chapter=Literary Contemporaries |editor-last=Kummings |editor-first=Donald D. |title=A Companion to Walt Whitman |location=Hoboken, New Jersey |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |pages=392–408 |isbn=978-1-4051-2093-7 |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Lewis |first=Lloyd |date=1994 |title=The Assassination of Lincoln: History and Myth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F6HB7q8M9TIC&pg=PA297 |location=Lincoln, Nebraska |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-0-8032-7949-0 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Loving |first=Jerome M. |year=1975 |title=Civil War Letters of George Washington Whitman |location=Durham, North Carolina |publisher=Duke University Press |pages= |isbn=0822303310}}
• {{Cite book |last=Loving |first=Jerome |year=1999 |title=Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself |location=Berkeley, California |publisher=University of California Press |pages= |isbn=0-520-21427-7 |oclc=39313629}}
• {{Cite book |last=Matteson |first=John |author-link=John Matteson |year=2021 |title=A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton and Company |isbn=978-0-3932-4707-7}}
• {{Cite book |last=Matthiessen |first=F. O. |year=1968 |orig-date=1941 |title=American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tULy3pA-ZoQC |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199726882 |oclc=640086213 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Miller |first=James E. |year=1962 |title=Walt Whitman |url= |location=New York |publisher=Twayne Publishers |pages= |isbn= |oclc=875382711}}
• {{Cite book |last=Oliver |first=Charles M. |date=2005 |title=Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4OEho6V-eFsC |location=New York |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-1-4381-0858-2 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Pannapacker |first=William |date=2004 |title=Revised Lives: Whitman, Religion, and Constructions of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Anglo-American Culture |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zMySAgAAQBAJ&q=%22O+captain%21+My+Captain%21%22+%22revised%22&pg=PA22 |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-92451-5 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Parini |first=Jay |date=2004 |title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nMhMAgAAQBAJ&q=%22The+Death+of+Abraham+Lincoln%22+%22walt+whitman%22+%22lecture%22&pg=RA3-PA378 |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-515653-9 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Peck |first=Garrett |year=2015 |title=Walt Whitman in Washington, D.C.: The Civil War and America's Great Poet |location=Charleston, South Carolina |publisher=The History Press |isbn=978-1626199736 |pages=}}
• {{Cite book |last=Podlecki |first=Anthony J. |year=2011 |orig-year=1984 |title=The Early Greek Poets and Their Times |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uIqxfVckpzAC&q=%22ship+of+state%22+%22o+captain+my+captain%22+%22longfellow%22&pg=PA69 |location=Vancouver, BC |publisher=University of British Columbia Press |pages= |isbn=9780774845045 |oclc=226375239 |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Price |first1=Kenneth |last2=Folsom |first2=Ed |year=2005 |title=Re-Scripting Walt Whitman: An Introduction to His Life and Work |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TgHmgDDLTegC&pg=PP1 |location=Malden, Massachusetts |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |isbn=9781405118064 |oclc=57286147}}
• {{Cite book |last=Rankin |first=Henry Bascom |date=1916 |title=Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EkV3AAAAMAAJ |location=New York |publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons |oclc=444414 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Reynolds |first=David S. |year=1995 |title=Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography |location=New York |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-0195170092 |pages=}}
• {{Cite book |last=Rush |first=Thomas D. |date=2012 |title=Reality's Pen: Reflections on Family, History & Culture |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-Amcq5JYE_0C&q=Now+in+this+class%2C+you+can+either+call+me+Mr.+Keating%2C+or+if+you%27re+slightly+more+daring%2C+O+captain+my+captain.&pg=PA26 |location=Minneapolis, Minn. |publisher=Hillcrest Publishing Group |isbn=978-1-938223-18-1 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Schöberlein |first=Stefan |date=Summer 2018 |title='From many million heart-throbs': Walt Whitman's Communitarian Sentimentalisms |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/699340 |journal=College Literature |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=449–486 |doi=10.1353/lit.2018.0027 |issn=1542-4286 |s2cid=150100388 |language=en |via=|url-access=subscription }}
• {{Cite book |last=Traubel |first=Horace |date=1908 |title=With Walt Whitman in Camden ...: July 16, 1888 – October 31, 1888 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xBZ_rHSUwcIC&q=walt+whitman+horace+traubel+%22damn+my+captain |location=New York |publisher=M. Kennerley |oclc=44547688 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last=Whitman |first=Walt |editor-last=Miller |editor-first=Edwin Haviland |year=1961 |title=The Correspondence |volume=1 |location=New York |publisher=New York University Press |pages= |oclc=471569564}}
• {{Cite book |last=Williams |first=Charles Kenneth |date=2010 |title=On Whitman |location=Princeton, New Jersey |publisher=Princeton University Press |pages= |isbn=978-1-4008-3433-4 |oclc=650307478}}

{{refend}}

{{Wikisource|O Captain! My Captain!}}

• {{librivox book | title=O Captain! My Captain! | author=Walt Whitman}}

{{Walt Whitman|state=expanded}}

{{Abraham Lincoln}}

Category:1865 poems

Category:Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Category:Metaphors referring to people

Category:Poetry by Walt Whitman

Category:Poems about death

Category:Quotations from literature

Category:1860s quotations

Category:Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln

Category:Works about the American Civil War