O Captain! My Captain!

Everything about “O Captain! My Captain!” is Romantic and classical. The poem’s meter is iambic, it follows a set heroic couplet rhyme scheme, and all the stanzas follow the same visual format, structure, and a nearly identical syllable count. Therefore, the form of the poem is traditional and classical, matching the seriousness of the moment. Additionally, the imagery of the ship, the captain, and the unnamed speaker who looks exalts the subject of the poem has an antiquated, almost mythological feel to it. Finally, the directness of the metaphor and allegorical way the narrative unwinds feels timeless. The timeless, antiquated, and Romantic nature of the poem mirrors another famous poem: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798). The comparison places this Whitman poem in the realm of traditional verse, which is unique for Whitman since most of his poetry was free verse and considered highly experimental for his time.

One reason the poem has remained popular is because of the blunt nature of its narrative. The metaphorical characters and setting do not allow for multiple interpretations; instead, the poem exemplifies one thing: the loss of a leader at the end of a triumphant journey. Therefore, the poem has been easily appropriated over the past two centuries for the passing of various leaders.

In just 24 lines, the poem allows for the full weight of grief and the progression of acceptance. In the first stanza, the ship returns to land where people are celebrating their captain’s return. But death interrupts this celebration of victory.

The second stanza serves as both celebration and funeral. The bells ring, the flags rise, the bugle trills, and flowers and wreaths decorate the scene. Each of these images could describe a party or a funeral, and though the poem implies these are part of a celebration, the speaker never explicitly says this is the case. Within this ambiguity, the speaker wonders if this scene is a dream (Line 15), showing he is not willing to accept his captain’s fate.

The final stanza moves from denial and surrealism to cold reality and acceptance. The speaker goes from pleading to the captain in the second stanza—“O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; / Rise up […]” (Lines 9-10)—to speaking about the captain in the third stanza: “My Captain does not answer” (Line 17). Though the speaker still mourns, he accepts reality, which is an essential change component within the grief process.

This juxtaposition of celebration/mourning and grief/acceptance echoes the conflicting feelings Americans had at the end of the Civil War and after Lincoln’s death. It also matches the feeling of many people who grieve for great leaders when they die: There is a celebration of the leader’s accomplishments while simultaneously coming to terms with the fact that they are gone.

Whitman also allows for some religious imagery when describing the captain, especially when he refers to him as “father” in the second and third stanzas. The sacrificial image of a martyred father resounds of the narrative of Christ’s sacrifice for mankind. In this regard, Whitman is mythologizing Lincoln as a religious figure who gave his life for the greater good, thereby enhancing Lincoln’s legacy in death.

Part of the importance of the captain’s sacrifice is how his death comes once “[t]he ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done / From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won” (Lines 19-20). The imagery of the captain dying only after completing the journey frames his life as one destined for sacrifice—as one resolute only to the cause and not to his own ambitions or desires. This mirrors not only Christ’s story but other mythological, religious, and fictional leaders who live for others. Throughout history, these sorts of figures continually arise during moments of crisis and are posthumously hailed as heroes. Some examples of these figures include Joan of Arc, Mahatma Gandhi, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Harvey Milk, among many others.

Finally, the fatherly captain further enhances the image of Lincoln as a father figure. Contemporaries saw and many historians see Lincoln as the Great Emancipator—a sort of Moses figure who led a captive people out of bondage. While this image is not entirely accurate, it is still a widely held view enduring through time. When added to the view that Lincoln was an old and wise president who had a vision for America when everyone else doubted it, it’s easy to view Lincoln as a fatherly figure in American history. It’s no shock, then, that Lincoln is constantly remembered as a “founding father” among the likes of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, even though his presidency was nearly a century after Washington’s. The imagery of a father suggests wisdom, power, care, and strength—all qualities Whitman believed Lincoln possessed.