Resources on the Rhetoric
of Lincoln's
Gettysburg
Address
"Fourscore and seven
years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated
can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in
a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor
power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated
here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It
is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from
these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last
full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died
in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government
of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
THE
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
-- in RealAudio
(read by Sam Waterston)
-- Introduction to
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
-- Notes from Richard Lanham's
Analysis
-- Study Questions on
Wills' Lincoln at Gettysburg, by Dr. James Klumpp
Articles on Lincoln's Rhetoric
- "Lincoln's Political
Rhetoric and the Growth of American Democracy, by Gerald Prokopowicz, Ph.D., Lincoln
Museum, Fort Wayne, IN. [RA]
- "Recovering
Rhetoric: HOW IDEAS, LANGUAGE, AND LEADERSHIP CAN TRIUMPH IN POSTMODERN POLITICS," by Gleaves Whitney (January 2000)
Lincoln's Speeches and Writings
March 9, 1832
"First Political Announcement"
December 22, 1847
"Spot Resolutions"
July 6, 1852
"Eulogy on Henry Clay"
October 16, 1854
"Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act"
August 24, 1855
"Letter to Joshua Speed"
December 10, 1856
"Address to the Republican Banquet in Chicago" (on public opinion)
June 26, 1857
"Speech on the Dred Scott Decision"
June 16, 1858 "A House
Divided Speech"
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
(Debate Information Center)
Lincoln-Douglas
Debates (University of Missouri-St. Louis)
February 27,
1860 "Cooper Union Address"
March 6, 1860 "Speech at
New Haven, Connecticut"
December 22, 1860 "Lincoln Letter
to Alexander H. Stephens"
February
11, 1861 "Farewell to Springfield"
March 4, 1861 "First Inaugural
Address"
July 4, 1861
"Message to Special Session of Congress"
December 3, 1861 "First
Annual Message to Congress"
August 22,
1862 "Letter to Horace Greeley"
September,
1862 "Meditation on the Divine Will"
September 22, 1862
"Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation"
December 1, 1862
"Second Annual Message to Congress"
January 1, 1863
"Emancipation Proclamation"
March 30, 1863
"Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day"
October 3,
1863 "Thanksgiving Proclamation"
November
19, 1863 "Gettysburg Address"
December 8, 1863 "Third
Annual Message to Congress"
December 8, 1863
"Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction"
July 8, 1864
"Proclamation on the Wade-Davis Bill"
November 21, 1864 "Letter
to Mrs. Bixby"
March 4,
1865 "Second Inaugural Address"
April 11, 1865
"Last Public Address"
Additional Resources
Gettysburg Address Exhibit (Library of
Congress)
Gettysburg
Address Teacher Resource (C-SPAN)
Gettysburg Events (NPS)
Gettysburg
Eyewitness (National Public Radio)
Lincoln at
Gettysburg Photo Tour
Edward Everett's Letter to
Lincoln (Library of Congress)
Photograph of Lincoln at
Gettysburg (Library of Congress)
Recollections
of Lincoln at Gettysburg
Response
to a Serenade
The Gettysburg Powerpoint
Presentation (Peter Norvig)
_______________
Notes from Richard Lanham's
analysis of "The Gettysburg Address" in
Chapter Seven ("Two Lemon-Squeezers") of Analyzing Prose (Scribners,
1983) pp. 156-165
--Devices identified by Lanham include pairings
("living and dead"), tricolons (twice), tetracolon climax ("that
from these honored dead . . . that we here highly resolve . . . that this nation . . . and
that government"), epiphora ("of the people, by the people, for the
people"), chiasmus (twice), and hypozeuxis.
--"Although the passage makes us feel prayerful, indeed feels like a prayer, it
doesn't look like one. It has, in fact, from the day it was delivered been taken as
the model of heartfelt simplicity, without design and ceremony." (162) [See
SPREZZATURA.]
--"Thus clearly the Gettysburg Address exemplifies a chorographia
(description of a nation) which depends on amamnesis (a recalling of the past).
The speaker tries to measure the reason for his controlled feelings--the immense
distance between the event and what anyone can say about the event--by an occupatio
(seeming to pass over what he really goes on to say) ("the world will little note nor
long remember"). Yet--here is what I mean about scale--the speech doesn't
really include an instance of occupatio . . . so much as reflect that to say
anything inevitably will be an occupatio, will mention what, given the distance between
words and deeds here, between life and death, ought to be pased over. Occupatio
becomes a key term here, but only when we see how it fits, and we can see that only when
we see the overall strategy." (164-65)
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