Walt Whitman’s Drum Taps may surprise people who read Leaves of Grass ages ago and have a foggy memory of its contents. The title suggests that Whitman is a nature poet, enraptured by trees, the seasons, and the country. While this is certainly true, it is not the whole story. Leaves of Grass celebrate the bustle of city life, trade, commerce, and the capitalism of the day.
Drum Taps displays an often-nationalist, Whitman. These (mostly) Civil War poems bring out the martial tendencies in Whitman, exhibiting a poet who saw the glory in war. Yet this is not completely true: as a nurse in Union hospitals, Whitman also saw the horrible cost of battle, and many of these poems reflect this.
Like all of Whitman’s work, Drum Taps is complex. The most famous of these poems is “O Captain! My Captain!” about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and featured in the movie Dead Poet’s Society. In context, it takes on other meanings.
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