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''When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd'' is a long poem in the form of an elegy written by American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) in 1865. The poem, written in free verse in 206 lines, uses many of the literary techniques associated with the pastoral elegy. It was written in the summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in the aftermath of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. Despite the poem being an elegy to the fallen president, Whitman neither mentions Lincoln by name nor discusses the circumstances of his death. Instead, Whitman uses a series of rural and natural imagery including the symbols of the lilacs, a drooping star in the western sky (Venus), and the hermit thrush, and employs the traditional progression of the pastoral elegy in moving from grief toward an acceptance and knowledge of death. The poem also addresses the pity of war through imagery vaguely referencing the American Civil War (1861–1865) which ended only days before the assassination. ''When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd'' was written ten years after publishing the first edition of ''Leaves of Grass'' (1855) and it reflects a maturing of Whitman's poetic vision from a drama of identity and romantic exuberance that has been tempered by his emotional experience of the American Civil War. Whitman included the poem as part of a quickly-written sequel to a collection of poems addressing the war that was being printed at the time of Lincoln's death. These poems, collected under the title ''Drum-Taps'' and ''Sequel to Drum-Taps'', range in emotional context from "excitement to woe, from distant observation to engagement, from belief to resignation" and "more concerned with history than the self, more aware of the precariousness of America's present and future than of its expansive promise." First published in autumn 1865, ''When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd''—along with 42 other poems from ''Drum-Taps'' and ''Sequel to Drum-Taps''—was absorbed into ''Leaves of Grass'' beginning with the fourth edition, published in 1867. Although Whitman did not consider the poem to be among his best works, it is compared in both effect and quality to several masterpieces of English literature, including elegies such as John Miltons ''Lycidas'' (1637) and Percy Bysshe Shelleys ''Adonaïs'' (1821). ==Writing history and background== In the late 1850s and early 1860s, Whitman established his reputation as a poet with the release of ''Leaves of Grass''. Whitman intended to write a distinctly American epic and developed a free verse style inspired by the cadences of the King James Bible. The small volume, first released in 1855, was considered controversial by some, with critics attacking Whitman's verse as "obscene". However, it attracted praise from American Transcendentalist essayist, lecturer, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, which contributed to fostering significant interest in Whitman's work. At the start of the American Civil War, Whitman moved from New York to Washington, D.C., where he obtained work in a series of government offices, first with the Army Paymaster's Office and later with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He volunteered in the army hospitals as a "hospital missionary." His wartime experiences informed his poetry which matured into reflections on death and youth, the brutality of war, patriotism, and offered stark images and vignettes of the war. Whitman's brother, George Washington Whitman, had been taken prisoner in Virginia on September 30, 1864 and was held for five months in Libby Prison, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Richmond, Virginia. On February 24, 1865, George was granted a furlough to return home because of his poor health, and Whitman had travelled to his mother's home in New York to visit his brother. While visiting Brooklyn, Whitman contracted to have his collection of Civil War poems, ''Drum-Taps'', published. The Civil War had ended and a few days later, on April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending the performance of a play at Ford's Theatre. Lincoln died the following morning. Whitman was at his mother's home when he heard the news of the president's death; in his grief he stepped outside the door to the yard, where the lilacs were blooming. Many years later, Whitman recalled the weather and conditions on the day that Lincoln died in ''Specimen Days'' where he wrote: Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated and his death had a long-lasting emotional impact upon the United States. Over the three weeks after his death, millions of Americans participated in a nationwide public pageant of grief, including a state funeral, and the 1,700-mile (2,700 km) westward journey of the funeral train from Washington, through New York, to Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln's public funeral in Washington was held on April 19, 1865. Some biographies indicate that Whitman journeyed to Washington to attend the funeral and possibly observed Lincoln's body during the viewing held in the East Room of the White House. Whitman biographer Jerome Loving believes that Whitman did not attend the public ceremonies for Lincoln in Washington as he did not leave Brooklyn for the nation's capital until April 21. Likewise, Whitman could not have attended ceremonies held in New York after the arrival of the funeral train, as they were observed on April 24. Loving thus suggests that Whitman's descriptions of the funeral procession, public events and the long train journey may have been "based on second-hand information". He does accede that Whitman in his journey from New York to Washington may have passed the Lincoln funeral train on its way to New York—possibly in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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