O Captain! My Captain!

" O Captain! My Captain!" is a poem written by Walt Whitman. It is about the death of the captain and how dear this captain was to the persona. The author is referring to Abraham Lincoln when talking about the captain. The persona is lost without the captain. There are five elements, that determine the poem's purpose and meaning: form, sound, figurative language, imagery, and poetic techniques.

First, the form of this poem is very simple. It consists of three stanzas with eight lines in each stanza. " O Captain! My Captain!" is a lyric poem that expresses the feeling of sadness and grieving for someone's death. The last four lines of each stanza are indented to show the sadness. The form helps connect the poem with the person and his loss of someone who was so meaningful in the narrator's life.

Another poetic element is sound. The sounds heard in this poem are very important. The rhyme scheme is: AABCDEFE, GGHIJEKE, LLMNOEPE. An example of internal rhyme is in line three with the words "The port is near, the bells I hear". Another example of internal rhyme is in line twenty with the words "From fearful trip the victor ship". The rhythm of "O Captain! My