I. Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born on Long Island, New York, into a Quaker family. Whitman had very little education, but the taught himself by reading and writing and by learning from life. He left school at the age of eleven and became an office boy. Later on he changed several jobs, working as a shopkeeper, an apprentice to a printer and an editor of various newspapers. A variety of jobs and first-hand knowledge of life and people offered great help with his writing.

In 1848 Whitman began to write poetry. In 1855, he published his first edition of Leaves of Grass, which contains only 12 of his best poems. The collection was soon enlarged into 32 poems. In his life, he wrote over 400 poems. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892.

Walt Whitman was one of the great innovators and pioneers in American poetry. His greatest contribution to American literature is the use of free verse, which has no regular meter, rhythm, or line length. He creates a rhythm that depends on natural speech rhythms. He is called “ the father of free verse ”.

II. Historical Background

1.Romanticism

As an European literary movement, Romanticism originated and strengthened in Germany, France and England in the middle of the 18th century. It reached the New World in the first decade of the 19th century when more and more Americans traveled to Europe and brought back with them the influence of European Romanticism. Romanticism was rebellious in spirit. It emphasized freedom and individualism, believing that imagination and emotion were superior to rules and reason. American romantic authors were quite responsive to the stimulus which American experience offered. Their subjects were often the national ideals of individualism and democracy, history, and frontier life of the new nation.

2.Free Verse

Free Verse is a term used to describe the poems of Walt Whitman and other poets whose verse is based not on the recurrence of stress accent in a regular, strictly measurable pattern, but rather on the irregular rhythmic cadence of the recurrence, with variations, of significant phrases, image patterns, and the like. Free Verse treats the device of rhyme with a similar freedom and irregularity. Whenever a persistent irregularity of the metrical pattern is established in a poem, it can justly be called free verse. During the twentieth century free verse has become so common as to have some claim to being the characteristic verse form of the age.

III. Reading Guide

“O Captain! My Captain!” is an elegy written in 1865, to mourn the death of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, who was assassinated on April 14, 1865, five days after the termination of the Civil War. The poem was first published in the pamphlet Sequel to Drum-Taps which assembled 18 poems regarding the American Civil War, including another Lincoln elegy, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Which was included in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass beginning with its fourth edition published in 1867.

In this poem, poet used the “captain” to symbolize Lincoln and the United States of America is represented by the “ship”. The leader is being conceived as the brave captain of a ship who falls dead on the deck just when the journey is over and the victory is won. Whitman delivers the message to the captain and declares that their fearful and dangerous trip is done. The ship has experienced severe obstacles such as the Civil War. Finally under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, the unions won the war and abolished the slavery. When everything is over, there is peace. However, the captain was dead at the sea, so the speaker felt bittersweet about the victory.

IV. O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d ever 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!

   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;

  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 fell 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,

    Fallen cold and dead.

V. Notes

1.“Captain” here refers to Abraham Lincoln, who is the captain of the ship representing the United States of America. Also, the page layout of the poem resemble the shape of a ship.

2.“Our fearful trip” refers to the American Civil War (1861-1865) which, though a hard-won battle, had now come to an end.

3.weather’d every rack: went through all the hardships.

4.the prize: the victory of Civil War and the abolition of slavery.

5.exulting: rejoicing; leaping for joy.

6.keel: the long piece of wood or steel along the bottom of a ship. Here it stands for the ship,

7.The repetition of “heart” in line five calls attention to the poet’s vast grief and heartache caused by the Captain’s bleeding and imminent death.

8.bugle: trumpet used in the army to announce activities; trill: to sound with tremulous vibration.

9.swaying mass: people moving to and fro.

10.This arm beneath your head: here the poet imagines that the wounded captain is lying in his arm, dying. in this stanza, the poet present a staggering contrast between scenes of admiring people eager to welcome their hero (flags flinging, bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths, shores crowding, mass swaying) and his collapse.

11.tread: the sound you make when you are walking.

VI. Translation

啊，船长，我的船长哟！

啊！船长，我的船长哟！我们可怕的航程已经终了，

我们的船渡过了每一个难关，我们追求的锦标已经得到，

港口就在前面，我已经听见钟声，听见人们的欢呼，

千万只眼睛在望着我们的船，它坚定、威严而且勇敢；

只是，啊，心哟！心哟！心哟！

  啊，鲜红的血滴，

   就在那甲板上，我的船长躺下了，

    他已浑身冰凉，停止了呼吸。

啊，船长，我的船长哟！起来听听这钟声，

起来吧，——旌旗正为你招展，——号角为你长鸣，

为你，人们准备了无数的花束和花环——为你，人群挤满了海岸，

为你，这晃动着的群众在欢呼，转动着他们殷切的面孔；

这里，船长，亲爱的父亲哟！

  让你的头枕着我的手臂吧！

   在甲板上，这真是一场梦——

    你已经浑身冰凉，停止了呼吸。

我的船长不回答我的话，他的嘴唇惨白而僵硬，

我的父亲，感觉不到我的手臂，他已经没有脉搏，也没有了生命，

我们的船已经安全地下锚了，它的航程已经终了，

从可怕的旅程归来，这胜利的船，目的已经达到；

啊，欢呼吧，海岸，鸣响吧，钟声！

  只是我以悲痛的步履，

   漫步在甲板上，那里，我的船长躺着，

    他已经浑身冰凉，停止了呼吸。