The Role of the poet in the American Civil War: Walt Whitman's "Drum-Taps" (1865) and Herman Melville's "Battle-Pieces" (1866)

Abstract

This MA thesis analyzes two of the most central literary renderings of the American Civil War: Walt Whitman's "Drum-Taps" (1865) and Herman Melville's "Battle-Pieces" (1866). Taking the war as the common ground, this thesis brings together two authors who, despite being full contemporaries and despite having become two of the most representative names in the literature of the United States, are not frequently studied side by side. Approaching Walt Whitman and Herman Melville as politically engaged individuals, citizens and poets who were very much concerned about the possibilities for a hopeful renewal of the U.S. the war might offer, the thesis analyzes the function both authors undertook, with their respective volumes of poetry, as reconcilers among confronted Americans and as mediators for the emergence of a truly democratic and more humane United States. In order to do this, the study examines how Whitman and Melville¿s experiences of the Civil War permeate their volumes of poetry "Drum-Taps" and "Battle-Pieces", respectively, together with the sociopolitical viewpoints about the future of their country that both authors expressed (or silenced) in their works.