Walt Whitman's grand Civil War elegy 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd' laments the assassination of Abraham Lincoln through which structural method?
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Correct answer: By never naming Lincoln, using three symbols: lilac, fallen star, and hermit thrush
Whitman's free-verse masterpiece never explicitly mentions Abraham Lincoln by name. Instead, the elegy processes the national trauma through an interlocking network of three symbolic motifs: the blooming lilac (representing love and memory), the drooping western star (symbolizing the departed President), and the song of the hermit thrush (representing the healing power of poetic expression).
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