Transcript Shiloh” analysis - Reaching Teachers

American War Poetry
(Taken from Kaplan 2012)
Read the following poem by the American
writer Herman Melville. In a well-organized
essay, explain how Melville transforms a
painful experience into something beautiful. In
your analysis, consider such elements as
imagery, tome, alliteration, symbolism, and end
rhyme.
(August 1, 1819 –
September 28, 1891) He
was an American novelist,
short story writer,
essayist, and poet. He is
best known for his novel
Moby-Dick.
The Battle of Shiloh, in
Tennessee, took place on
6-7 April 1862. Casualty
levels were
unprecedented: the 3500
men who died there
amounted to more than the
United States had lost in
the Revolutionary War, the
War of 1812 and the
Mexican War combined.
http://war-poets.blogspot.com/2009/10/herman-melvilleshiloh.html
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
“how Melville
transforms a painful
experience into
something beautiful”
The techniques
transform the pain of
battle into a song of
peace and respect


“Shiloh” = battle of Shiloh in the Civil War
A Requiem = a funeral song for the departed


Pays homage to those who died in battle
Emphasizes the tragedy of war rather than glorifying
pain and heroic death

Peaceful,
somber
Swallows
 Clouded days
 Forest field
 Night
 Noon
 Eve
 Hushed



Repeated refrain (lines 4,9,19) = musical nature,
suggests cyclical nature of life and death
Meter and rhyme = regularly irregular


Soothing, peaceful
Like a lullaby

“S” and “sh” (whole poem)

Soothing peaceful
 Line 11 “parting groan” – like a calming shhh to the dying
 “F” (lines 13-15)
 Puts emphasis on the idea
that in death, they are all
equal, no longer “foes”

“April rain” (5)
Wash away the suffering
 “reborn” into afterlife


“night” (7) + “eve” (14)


Symbol of death
“church” (9)


Symbol of peace
final resting place (graveyard)
Shiloh Church before the battle

“April”
Springtime usually connotes new
life, but here it is all death

Lines 13-14 “Of dying foemen
mingled there-- / Foemen at morn,
but friends at eve”



Enemies in battle, but all equal in death now
Line 16 “(What like a bullet can undeceive)”
 The bullet, or death is the “great undeceiver” – shows
soldiers they are not enemies any longer—were they ever?

Melville gives the fatally wounded the opportunity
to overcome their hostility. Americans all, they live
as foe and die as friends: the schisms of civil war
are healed in deaths which transform churchyard
into graveyard. That the battlefield should have
been a site of Christian worship emphasizes the
appalling costs of this fratricide as well as the
possibilities for its redress.
http://war-poets.blogspot.com/2009/10/herman-melville-shiloh.html
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Be careful in your introduction of simply
repeating the prompt. I read essay after essay
that started with “Melville uses x, y, and z to
transform a painful experience into something
beautiful.”
This is unoriginal and boring and starts your
essay off poorly Make it more original.