Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington.Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington, by Daniel Mark Epstein Daniel Mark Epstein (born 25 October 1948 in Washington, D.C.) is an American poet, dramatist and biographer. Epstein earned his B.A. from Kenyon College. He has been awarded an NEA Poetry Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Prix de Rome (1977), the Robert Frost Prize, (Ballantine, 379 pp., $24.95) DANIEL MARK EPSTEIN, poet and biographer, has had the inspired idea of bringing together two quintessential Americans, Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman. In the first vignette here, from 1857, Lincoln lies on a couch in his law office, his legs so long they hang over the end. He is reading aloud, and at length, from the new Leaves of Grass. Heretofore, Lincoln's oratory had been shaped by the influence of Euclid's cool logic. Epstein argues persuasively that reading Whitman led Lincoln directly to the rhythms and imagery of his great "House Divided" speech. Whitman began, in Washington, what amounted to a ministry to the wounded in the fetid fetid /fet·id/ (fe´tid) (fet´id) having a rank, disagreeable smell. fet·id adj. Having an offensive odor. fetid having a rank, disagreeable smell. hospitals, comforting them as he could. Lincoln became aware of the remarkable presence of Whitman--his huge head, his beard, and his wondering eyes--standing in the crowd watching him as he was driven to and from his summer residence. Whitman wrote: "I see very plainly Abraham Lincoln's dark brown face, with the deep-cut lines, the eyes ... always to me with a deep latent sadness.... We have got so that we always exchange bows." Lincoln and Whitman were bound by Leaves of Grass, and by their immersion in suffering, appalled by the dead and wounded always present to them. As Whitman wrote, "I am the man, I suffered, I was there." When Lincoln was assassinated as·sas·si·nate tr.v. as·sas·si·nat·ed, as·sas·si·nat·ing, as·sas·si·nates 1. To murder (a prominent person) by surprise attack, as for political reasons. 2. , Whitman wrote the most famous elegy elegy, in Greek and Roman poetry, a poem written in elegiac verse (i.e., couplets consisting of a hexameter line followed by a pentameter line). The form dates back to 7th cent. B.C. in Greece and poets such as Archilochus, Mimnermus, and Tytraeus. , "O Captain! My Captain!" and also the best elegy, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d Whitman poem mourns the death of Lincoln. [Am. Lit.: Benét, 1085] See : Grief ." Epstein brings a poet's discernment to his comments on the complex prosody prosody: see versification. prosody Study of the elements of language, especially metre, that contribute to rhythmic and acoustic effects in poetry. of this masterpiece, with its imagery of the western falling star, the lilac, and the thrush. Epstein's book is a luminous work of insight and evocation. |
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