Publication details
Lincoln's Miniature Bible : Performing Sacred History in the Gettysburg Address
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Brno Studies in English |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | Smith, "Lincoln's Miniature Bible" (Brno Studies in English) |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/BSE2019-1-11 |
| Keywords | Abraham Lincoln; Gettysburg Address; American Civil War; Bible; Christianity; political rhetoric; WaltWhitman; William H. Herndon |
| Description | Analysts of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address have noted its reliance on religious and liturgicallanguage and motifs, but have not fully recognized the intricate way in which is mimics the Bible, replicatingthe "U-shape" of "type" and "antitype" that Northrop Frye and others have identified as the structuringprinciple of Christian Scripture. Elaborating this schema with remarkable care, Lincoln in effect re-createssacred or "salvation" history in miniature, casting the ephemeral words and event of the moment as the focalpoint of human destiny. The resulting dialectical tension, which counterposes the fleeting or disposable to theprofoundly important, refutes – but was also carried forward – in the popular legend that the address washastily written on the back of an envelope. In other instructive ways, too, it helped to generate the mythicmeanings that Americans have attached both to the address and to Lincoln himself. |
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