Language and style

Understanding the language and the style of the poem “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman should be an important step in your analysis. These elements of language and style can help you set the poem into context and better grasp its message.

Playing with the language

The poet plays with language in a metaphorical and symbolical way. As you know, the captain is actually a symbol for Abraham Lincoln.

Also, the “shores” are not only referring to literal sea shores, but also to the country and its people: “For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding” (l. 11)

Another example of the poet playing with language is personifying the drops of blood. It is not the captain who bleeds, but the drops. This is also a synecdoche: “O the bleeding drops of red,” (l. 6).

Tense of the verbs

The poem is mainly written in the present tense simple. However, the poet also employs present perfect simple and past tense simple mixed with passive voice to give readers a sort of back story on what has happened prior to the ship going home: “The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,” (l. 2).

The passive voice helps create a feeling of accomplishment, while the present perfect simple is used to show that past actions have effects on the present.

But the poem is mostly describing present actions, suggesting an ongoing pain when it comes to the captain’s death and a feeling of impatience when it comes to the boat reaching the shores:

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;  (ll. 3-4)

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse n...