of this edition reads, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career”. In conclusion this letter from Emerson was Whitman’s key motivation. “Whitman was in every sense of the word a practicing poet” (Walt Whitman, pg. 13).Who is the poem O Captain! MY Captain! about?Why was this poem written? During the times of the Civil War, Walt Whitman experienced different surroundings. Throughout all his time seeing the actions of the Civil War, he greatly honored one man. This one man was Abraham Lincoln. Even though Whitman never met Lincoln, he saw him almost every day during one season, when the president, who was living out of town, rode by on his horse surrounded by a squad of cavalrymen. Whitman shared Lincoln’s sympathy with people everywhere that where struggling to be free. Through all this political matters Whitman and Lincoln fully agreed. They stood for those “axioms of a free society” (Our Literary Heritage, pg. 119).The poem O Captain! My Captain! was about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Although Whitman had never met Lincoln, Whitman wrote in such great detail that you would believe he was standing next to Lincoln when he was killed....
