The Gettysburg Address: Lincolns Literary Masterpiece - Essay Example

? The Gettysburg Address: Lincoln’s Literary Masterpiece The day was beautiful and the crowd was solemn. Abraham Lincoln took his place at the podiumand said what he had come to say. He didn’t speak in the florid style so popular at the time, but in tones as measured as the words he’d written. The speech was so brief that those present were confused when it was over (Einhorn 98). The audience wasn’t impressed that day, but Lincoln’s deliberate use of Biblical phrasing, his repetition of words and ideas, and his use of literary parallelism all conveyed his belief that he—and the country he lead—had been given a divine mandate to preserve both the Union and the concept of the equality of all people. Leaders have pronounced orations over fallen heroes ever since Pericles praised the bravery of the men who died in the Peloponnesian War. Pericles spoke of the nobility of the State for which they died, and his exhortations convinced the living to emulate the dead “as a model” (Thucydides 112). Lincoln’s task was no less difficult than that of Pericles. The nation was only half-way through the bloody war, and stunned by the sheer scale of the death. Lincoln was determined to define the stakes of the war and emphasize the need to continue the fight. If Pericles used epideictic rhetoric to spur the Athenians onward, Lincoln combined ritualized rhetoric with a literary style designed to signify the grave importance of the challenge that was faced by the nation. What better way to add importance than by using words and phrases that ring with Biblical overtones? Lincoln didn’t quote from the Bible that day, but he used Biblical-sounding language deliberately and purposely to challenge Americans to continue to fight. (Einhorn, 96) “Four score and seven years ago,” he began, instead of using a more common formulation like ‘eighty-seven years ago’. Lincoln was telling his audience that the founding of our nation was a holy business, one worked by “our fathers”. He meant, of course, the founding fathers of the United States; but the phrase linked the nation’s founders with the ‘forefathers’ of the Jewish nation. ‘Our fathers’ were holy leaders who guided a holy people. Lincoln went on to say that the nation founded by our fathers was dedicated—just as the Biblical prophet Samuel was dedicated to God’s service by a grateful mother who had difficulty conceiving him. This is particularly interesting in the speech’s first sentence, when Lincoln speaks of the nation as being first conceived, and then dedicated (Einhorn 98). Lincoln is saying that the United States, conceived by an act of God, had then been dedicated to the divine mission of pursuing equality for all. Lincoln reaffirmed his belief that the United States was ‘brought forth’ for this purpose alone and therefore could not fail. Lincoln often used repetition to make a point, and the Gettysburg Address was no exception. In addition to using Biblical language, Lincoln repeated words, ideas, and sounds. Some of the sentences in the speech are highly alliterative, for instance (Bassler 44). The repetition of sounds gave the Gettysburg Address the feel of a great literary work, lending both cadence and gravity to the actual meaning of the words. He repeated words, too. He stressed the word ‘dedication’—again, a phrase with Biblical overtones—repeating it three separate times. Lincoln pointed out that the nation had long ago been dedicated to the idea of equality, and now the very ground was dedicated by the blood of those who fought for equality. The only possible response, he continued, was for the living to dedicate themselves to the unfinished work of equality. The constant repetition of the word drives home the idea that the war was not a casual undertaking, but one which required total commitment—and sacrifice (Bellah). Lincoln also repeated specific concepts in his brief address, combining them to create larger themes. Lincoln was speaking to an audience of mourners who were there to honor dead loved ones. Lincoln paired that idea—reverence for the dead—with his own passionate desire to preserve democracy, and he illustrated the two by comparing the living with the dead. The dead ‘gave their lives’, Lincoln said, but the nation ‘must live’. The dead ‘consecrated ‘this ground’, which was something the living could not do. The world would not ‘long remember’ the words of the living, but would never be able to forget the deeds of the dead. ‘These honored dead’ had given ‘the last full measure’, so the only choice left to the living was to dedicate themselves to the cause. In this way, the dead would not have died in vain. Through this repetition, Lincoln used the crowd’s reverence for their war dead to remind them that they, too, had a mission; and he exhorted his audience to insure that freedom did not ‘vanish from this earth’. Lincoln also made use of literary parallelism in The Gettysburg Address. The new nation, he said, had been both ‘conceived in liberty’ and ‘dedicated’ to an ideal. A sentence or two later, he again makes reference to the nation that was ‘so conceived’ and ‘so dedicated’. The parallelism again stressed the idea that the United States was miraculously conceived through divine intervention, and as a result should be dedicated to God’s mission. Lincoln used parallelism to emphasize the importance of the nation, too. That nation was being actively challenged by those who would die to divide it, but Lincoln strongly believed that the nation, created by God, had to endure intact in order to serve the divine purpose. So he brought it up over and over again: ‘a new nation’, and ‘that nation or any nation so conceived’, and ‘that that nation might live’. He draws a distinct parallel between ‘the nation’, which was holy, with the ways in which that nation had been asked to sacrifice: ‘that war’ which had claimed so many lives, and ‘that field’ where so many men spilled their blood. And he uses parallel construction to emphasize the importance of finishing God’s mission by referring to ‘the unfinished work’, and ‘the great task’, and ‘that cause’ for which Union sons had died. Lincoln understood that the thoughts of his audience were focused on their loss; but he believed that a much greater loss would be suffered if the United States was divided. Every word of the Gettysburg Address was polished, refined by Lincoln’s fear that the people would not stay the course, and that the government made precious because it was ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’—Lincoln’s most recognizable use of parallelism—would perish. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address contained elements of epideictic rhetoric--like Pericles, he honored the dead for their sacrifice. But his use of the literary elements of Biblical phrasing, repetition and parallelism sent a message that there was much more at stake than the lives of young men. The nation had been dedicated to a holy cause from its beginning days, and Lincoln’s use of literary language added deliberative elements to the Gettysburg address (Zyskind), and emphasized that the unity of the Union was of paramount importance. Works Cited Bellah, Robert N. "Civil Religion in America." Daedalus 134.4 (2005): 40-55. Basler, Roy P., ed. Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings. Cleveland OH: World Publishing, 1946. Einhorn, Lois J. Abraham Lincoln, the Orator: Penetrating the Lincoln Legend. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992. Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. New York: Random Zyskind, Harold. “A Rhetorical Analysis of the Gettysburg Address.” Journal of General Education 4 (1950): 202-212. Read More