O Captain! My Captain!

E68907

"O Captain! My Captain!" is a famous elegiac poem by Walt Whitman mourning the death of Abraham Lincoln through an extended ship-and-captain metaphor.

All labels observed (4)

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (47)

Predicate Object
instanceOf elegy
poem
addedToCollection 1867 edition of Leaves of Grass
author Walt Whitman
collection Leaves of Grass
countryOfOrigin United States of America
surface form: United States
dateOfEventDescribed 1865-04-14
dedicatedTo Abraham Lincoln
firstPublishedIn Sequel to Drum-Taps
form lyric poem
genre elegiac poetry
hasClosingLine "Walk the deck my Captain! You’ve fallen cold and dead."
hasOpeningLine "O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;"
historicalContext post–Civil War Reconstruction era
influencedBy American Civil War
Lincoln’s leadership
language English
lineCount 24
literaryDevice anaphora
apostrophe
extended metaphor
imagery
meter irregular
movement Transcendentalism
surface form: American Transcendentalism
notableFor popularity in American schools
unusually regular rhyme and meter for Whitman
originalPublicationYear 1865
period American Romanticism
placeOfEventDescribed Washington, D.C.
portraysAsMetaphor captain as Abraham Lincoln
ship as the United States
voyage as the Civil War
refrain "Fallen cold and dead"
O Captain! My Captain! self-linksurface differs
surface form: "O Captain! my Captain!"
rhymeScheme regular end rhyme
stanzaCount 3
subject American Civil War
assassination of Abraham Lincoln
leadership
mourning and grief
national trauma
theme cost of victory
heroic sacrifice
public celebration versus private grief
tone mournful
reverent
writtenInResponseTo death of Abraham Lincoln

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (8)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Leaves of Grass notablePoem O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman notableWork O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman wrote O Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! My Captain! refrain O Captain! My Captain! self-linksurface differs
this entity surface form: "O Captain! my Captain!"
Drum-Taps hasPart O Captain! My Captain!
John Keating associatedWork O Captain! My Captain!
this entity surface form: poem "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman
"Fallen cold and dead" partOf O Captain! My Captain!
this entity surface form: "O Captain! My Captain!"
"Fallen cold and dead" appearsInWork O Captain! My Captain!
this entity surface form: "O Captain! My Captain!"