A New Semester of TAing and Poems

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up -- for you the flag is flung -- for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths -- for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

I selected this poem to go with Aristotle's Politics to pick up on the theme of the relationship of the good ruler to the good laws. The kids brought up the different positions on slavery that Aristotle and Lincoln had, as well as considering Lincoln as Aristotle's virtuous man (I think that the Straussians had already thought of this...). They also pointed us to Aristotle's metaphor of a ship in the Politics, in which the preservation of the ship is the goal. Additionally, the children considered the relationship of the state to the household and the relationship of political rule to mastery (this question is raised in the poem when Whitman switches from "captain" to "father").