17 pages • 34 minutes read
Walt WhitmanVigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1865A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
"When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d" by Walt Whitman (1865)
This poem is Whitman’s elegy for former President Abraham Lincoln and serves as a counterpoint to “Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night.” In keeping with the subject of this later poem, Lincoln’s assassination, “Lilacs” eschews the personal quality of “Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night” in favor of lines creating a synecdoche—when a term for something is representative of the whole—between Lincoln’s death and that of all soldiers in the American Civil War.
"Song of Myself, 6 [A child said, What is the grass?]" by Walt Whitman (1855)
“Song of Myself, 6” reinforces some of the transcendental qualities found in “Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night.” Though Whitman does not fit within the parameters of the transcendental movement, he does share those writers’ interest in creating a generative link between nature and humanity.
"Song of Myself, 49 [And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me]" by Walt Whitman (1855)
“Song of Myself, 49” illustrates Whitman’s attitude toward death, but in a more personal way than in “Vigil Strange.” Instead of responding to the death of soldiers and a president during the American Civil War, here, he shows his faith in the regenerative cycle: “And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me” (Line 6).
Further Literary Resources
"Transcendentalism" by Roger Asselineau
This entry from Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia focuses on the links between Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is often viewed as the founder of transcendentalism. The entry follows a chronological format from Whitman’s earliest encounters with Emerson, through their correspondence and the influence of the older writer on the younger, and on through Whitman’s “excommunicat[tion]” from the movement when Emerson omitted him from his anthology of transcendental work, Parnassus.
"Traveling with the Wounded: Walt Whitman and Washington’s Civil War Hospitals" by Martin G. Murray
This article from the Whitman Archive details Whitman’s efforts to help the wounded and dying during the American Civil War. Including artwork, it covers everything from his initial visit to see his injured brother George in 1862, through the end of the war in 1865. Whitman was considered so essential to the work of the hospital that he was invited to march in a victory parade with George’s regiment. Finally, the resource follows through to the end of Whitman’s life, providing a useful, concise biography of his adult years.
"Walt Whitman “more important now than ever”" by Kathleen McGarvey
This news article highlights the work of the Whitman Archive, including comments from Ed Folsom, the Roy J. Carver Professor of English at the University of Iowa, who serves as one of its main editors. The article is an overview of Whitman and his work, with special attention paid to his newly discovered novel, Life and Adventures of Jack Engle. This is a great place for those new to Whitman to begin.
Listen to Poem
Listen to a reading of “Vigil Strange” with accompaniment from Gustav Mahler’s Adagietto from Symphony No. 5. The “Show More” section includes the full text of the poem.
Related Titles
By Walt Whitman
