Thursday, 18 November: Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (2941-2948);

Reader: Brian Saxton

What is romantic about this poem?

        This poem is a love song. This is a love song between two comrades in War, where only one returns alive. This is a love song to a husband, a father, a brother, or a lover who has been killed in the War. This is a love song, a funeral dirge of all those soldiers who never returned, of the boys who became men, for all the women left behind and left to grieve for them. This is a love song, a funeral dirge from the family of Abe Lincoln, the President of the time.

        The following are a few lines I picked out to celebrate the romance of the poem.

“In the dooryard fronting and old farmhouse near the white wash’d palings,

Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

With many a pointed blossom painted delicate, with the perfume strong I love,

With every leaf a miracle – and from this bush in the dooryard,

With delicate color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

A sprig with its flower I break. Pg.2942, section 3

        What it means, though the person or persons are dead, there is love that grows as if the person is still a live. It is a love that is rebirth every spring and never seems to die. It is a love that, once started, shall grow and go on forever and ever, death is but a thin barrier easily breached and love conquers all.

        There is also a dark side or gothic side to this poem. On pg. 2941, the first three sets of lines talks of death and darkness. It takes something beautiful, like, line one, “When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d" and turns it into something ugly or grotesque, like line nine in the last stanza of pg. 2941, “O the black murk that hides the star” It holds a gothic feel to it. It is as if it is taken the most natural way of life and turning it to something supernatural, especially when compared to love everlasting.

My question is: What do you think would be gothic, yet romantic about this poem?