Lincoln

July 28, 2008
Three books venture into unexplored areas as Lincoln's 2009 bicentennial approaches.
Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer
Fred Kaplan
. Harper
, $27.95 (416p) ISBN 978-0-06-077334-2

In this intriguing biography, English professor and literary biographer Kaplan (The Singular Mark Twain
) analyzes Abraham Lincoln's writings, from the great civic anthems of his presidency to love letters, legal briefs, poems and notebook jottings, and finds a first-rate literary talent—a master storyteller with an earthy wit, sharp logic and an ear for poetic phrasing. From wide reading, Kaplan contends, Lincoln gleaned influences—an Aesopian moralism, a biblical sense of providence, a Byronic melancholy, a Shakespearean understanding of human complexity—that shaped his approach to issues and, through his words, the nation's attitude toward slavery and war. Kaplan sometimes overdoes his critical exegeses of Lincoln's more forgettable efforts (“ comic depiction of what happens when two people of the same sex are bedded has a heterodox clarity that reveals his familiarity with bodily realities”) but many of these readings, like his recasting as free verse a speech on agricultural improvements, are eye-opening. The result is a fresh, revealing study of both Lincoln's language and character.

January 1, 2015

Kaplan examines Lincoln's writings to consider how the politician drew on his gifts as a storyteller--along with his mastery of American vernacular and his extensive knowledge of the Bible, Shakespeare, and other popular sources--to exercise rhetorical power almost unmatched in his day and beyond. (LJ 9/1/08)

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