求英文诗《oh captain my captain》的来历 和写作环境

　　惠特曼的第一部诗集是《草叶集》(Leaves of Grass)，1855年在纽约出版时只有94项，包括12首诗作，到1882年版时，已增加到372首诗作；1861年美国南北战争爆发，这个时期，他写下了真实记录这场革命战争的《鼓专用集》；林肯总统被刺后，他写下了沉痛表达美国人民对林肯被刺而哀思的《啊，船长!我的船长!》、《今天的军营静悄悄》等诗篇，表示了对林肯的沉痛哀悼；在有名的《神秘的号手》一诗中，他乐观地描绘了未来的自由世界。惠特曼是美国著名的民主诗人，他歌颂民主自由，体现了美国人民对民主的渴望，他赞美人民创造性的劳动，他的诗给人以积极向上的生气勃勃的精神。

　　赏析：

　　啊，船长，我的船长哟!这是诗人惠特曼为悼念林肯而写下的著名诗篇。林肯是美国第16任总统，在任期内，他为维护国家统一、摧毁蓄奴制而领导了南北战争，解放了黑人奴隶。就在美国人民欢庆胜利的时刻，反动势力雇佣的刺客杀害了他。惠特曼为此极度悲痛，写下了很多诗纪念这位伟大的英雄，这首诗是最著名的一首。在欢庆胜利之时悼念自己的领袖，这首诗的基调是悲壮的。诗人运用了比喻和象征的手法，把美国比作一艘航船，把林肯总统比作船长，把维护国家的统一和废奴斗争比作一段艰险的航程。

　　写作背景：

　　1783年，美国脱离英国的统治独立后，国内存在着雇拥劳动制和黑人奴隶制。
　　1860年11月，以反对奴隶制而著名的林肯当选为美国总统。南方几个州宣布脱离联邦政府而独立，1861年4月，又首先出兵叛乱，引发了内战。林肯总统上任不到半年，就领导联邦政府军，在广大人民的支持下，经过了四年的奋战，击败了南方叛军，维护了美国的统一，废除了黑人奴隶制。南北战争是美国历史上第二次资产阶级民主革命。这次革命的成功促进了美国资本主义的发展。林肯总统为美国历史写下了光辉的一页，功勋卓著。在全国欢庆大胜利的时刻，对民主怀有刻骨仇恨的南方奴隶主派间谍暗杀了林肯总统。在林肯总统死后，惠特曼写下了《啊，船长，我的船长》这首诗，以表达对林肯的痛悼与怀念之情。

惠特曼纪念林肯遇刺所做
死亡诗社中也有出现

Walt Whitman 1865

Written on the occasion Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, “O Captain! My Captain!” was first published in the New York Saturday Press (November 1865) and was later included, along with “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” in a group of poems titled “Sequel” to Drum Taps (1865). While “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” has become one of Whitman’s most critically acclaimed poems, “O Captain! My Captain!,” which incorporates more conventional rhyme and meter, was by far the most popular of Whitman’s poems during his lifetime.

“O Captain! My Captain!” became an instant classic, and children were taught to recite its verses in school. Yet Whitman thought the praise the poem garnered was unwarranted. He is noted to have said: “I’m almost sorry I ever wrote that poem.... I say that if I’d written a whole volume of My Captains I’d deserve to be spanked and sent to bed with the world’s compliments — which would be generous treatment, considering what a lame duck book such a book would have been!” At the heart of this statement is Whitman’s recognition that the reading audience of his day still preferred conventionally rhymed and metered poems over more experimental free-verse forms that he himself favored. Nevertheless, “O Captain! My Captain!” does attest to Whitman’s versatility as a poet. While engaging fixed patterns of rhyme and meter, the poem manages to communicate Whitman’s heroic vision of Lincoln, the great Union leader of the Civil War, as well as the horror, shock, and dismay Whitman felt at learning of Lincoln’s assassination.

The fallen Captain of the poem is an allusion to Abraham Lincoln, and the ship is a metaphor for the ship of state, or more precisely, the United States of America. The speaker’s difficulty in coming to grips with the death of his Captain is the subject of the poem. While he knows his Captain is dead, he hopes that he is dreaming, that he is somehow mistaken. However, the last line, in repeating the refrain “Fallen cold and dead,” lends a sense of finality to the poem and leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind. The Captain (Lincoln), the speaker’s father figure and leader, is indeed dead, and what should have been a time of great rejoicing at the end of the Civil War has been turned into a time of national grief and mourning.