"O Captain! My Captain!" is a poem written by Walt Whitman in 1865 as a tribute to President Abraham Lincoln after his assassination. The poem has a distinctive meter, known as anapestic tetrameter, which consists of four anapestic feet per line. An anapestic foot consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable, as in the word "understand."
The poem's title, "O Captain! My Captain!," is written in trochaic tetrameter, which consists of four trochaic feet per line. A trochaic foot consists of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, as in the word "apple." The repetition of this meter at the beginning of the poem creates a sense of urgency and excitement, as if the speaker is calling out to their captain for attention.
The rest of the poem is written in anapestic tetrameter, which gives it a light, bouncy rhythm. This meter is often used in humorous or playful poetry, and its use in "O Captain! My Captain!" adds a sense of levity to the poem's otherwise somber subject matter.
However, the anapestic meter also creates a sense of struggle and strife, as the stressed syllables in each foot fall at the end of the line. This creates a sense of tension and anticipation, as if the speaker is straining towards a goal or struggling against an obstacle.
In "O Captain! My Captain!," the anapestic meter perfectly captures the mix of emotions that the speaker is feeling as they mourn the loss of their leader. The light, bouncy rhythm reflects the sense of hope and optimism that the speaker holds onto even in the face of tragedy, while the tension and anticipation in the stressed syllables reflects the struggle and strife that the speaker is enduring.
Overall, the use of anapestic tetrameter in "O Captain! My Captain!" adds depth and complexity to the poem, imbuing it with a sense of both levity and struggle that perfectly reflects the speaker's mixed emotions.
