Many thanks, PB and Anita!
Right before an Inauguration is to be given --
Here we are, so many years in the future - The battles, bloodshed, and generations lost to the Civil War were critical at the time - but what most-handily remains are leaders' recorded words.
Did Lincoln sense how dependent future generations would be on his words when faced with a crisis-of-identity?
The Atlantic: What Lincoln's Second Inaugural Meant
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...ource=feed
Mr. Ignatieff pretends he can get into Lincoln's head. Several assumptions made early in the article seem improbable. (Lincoln didn't write a short speech to disappoint; he was in the habit of being concise.)
The conclusion of the editorial is great, "We can reach back... to whatever deep wisdom we have ever been taught, and can find out, once again, who we are, where we are, what we must accept, and what we must do." ...
For some months I've been reading Shakespeare's Sonnets - I apologize if I've already flagged this -
Can I ask - Does this analogy make sense in reference the North and South? Was a reference to Shakespeare in the Second Inaugural purposeful?
Might anyone have suggested reading, for good analysis of Lincoln's important addresses?
Sonnet 144: Two loves I have of comfort and despair
By William Shakespeare
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And, whether that my angel be turn’d fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,
But being both from me both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell.
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Ronald White wrote a book called "Lincoln's Greatest Speech" specifically about the second inaugural. Also, Douglas Wilson wrote "Lincoln's Sword" which is a more generalized study of his use of words. Those are the two that immediately come to mind.
Best
Rob
Thank you, Rob!
I think I shall add this Doug Wilson book to my wish-list.
Do you know, do both books go into some detail about the influence of Shakespeare's work?
(I assume Lincoln simply stored ideas and imagery from what he had read in his subconscious, and retrieved it as it occurred to him. I'm vaguely under the impression that S's Sonnets were not very popular with the public until the 1900s... That the book of poems was republished not more than ten times from 1609-1900...)
Amy,
Lincoln's Sword has only one reference in the index to Shakespeare, and it covers Lincoln's favorite quote. In the whole mess of putting up my bookcase, I have evidently misplaced some of my Lincoln books, including White's book (not to mention Sandburg's
Prairie Years). Looking online, there are references in White's book to Shakespeare, but the preview omitted those pages. If I can find the book I'll let you know.
I forgot that there was a book published in 2015 by Michael Anderegg called
Lincoln and Shakespeare. I haven't read it, and I just browsed through the index, so I can't tell you what he covers, but you might consider adding that as well.
Here is a podcast featuring Anderegg that the Folger Library did in 2020.
https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespe...m-lincoln/
Best
Rob
(03-16-2023 10:19 AM)Rob Wick Wrote: [ -> ]Amy,
Lincoln's Sword has only one reference in the index to Shakespeare, and it covers Lincoln's favorite quote.
Best
Rob
What was "Lincoln's favorite [Shakespeare] quote"?
"There is a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."
Best
Rob
(06-28-2025 10:07 AM)Rob Wick Wrote: [ -> ]"There is a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."
Best
Rob
Excellent!
When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will—
Hamlet -- Act 5, Scene 2
Francis B. Carpenter, in his book The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln, Six Months at the White House (1879) at pages 49-51, presented in detail what may have been President Lincoln's favorite passage of Shakespeare.
Carpenter wrote:
[President Lincoln]once remarked [to me], "It matters not to me whether Shakespeare be well or ill acted; with him the thought suffices." Edwin Booth was playing an engagement at this time at Grover's Theatre. He had been announced for the coming evening in his famous part of Hamlet. The President had never witnessed his representation of this character, and he proposed being present. The mention of this play, which I afterward learned had at all times a peculiar charm for Mr. Lincoln's mind, waked up a train of thought I was not prepared for. Said he, -- and his words have often returned to me with a sad interest since his own assassination, -- "There is one passage of the play of "Hamlet" which is very apt to be slurred over by the actor, or omitted altogether, which seems to me the choicest part of the play. It is the soliloquy of the king, after the murder. It always struck me as one of the finest touches of nature in the world."
Hamlet, Act 3, scene 3:
O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t,
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will.
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin
And both neglect. What if this cursèd hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offense?
And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,
To be forestallèd ere we come to fall,
Or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up.
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder:
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain th’ offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offense’s gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above:
There is no shuffling; there the action lies
In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limèd soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay.
Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.
All may be well.
[President Lincoln] repeated this entire passage from memory, with a feeling and appreciation unsurpassed by anything I have ever witnessed upon the stage.