Study Questions
Wills' Lincoln
At Gettysburg
Contents
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Prologue
Basic Questions
- Why was oratory required at Gettysburg? If speeches are responses
to the situations of public life, how would you characterize this situation?
- What were Lincoln's aims for his speech at Gettysburg?
- What does Wills say is the ultimate achievement of Lincoln's speech?
Questions indicating your deeper understanding
- If you were Lincoln, how would you go about preparing your speech for Gettysburg?
- Describe the differences in expectations for a speech at Gettysburg
in 1863 and a similar speech today at a similar event. How does this influence
our judgement today to the length of Edward Everett's speech? Describe the
roots of these expectations in the American community at the time of the Civil
War.
- Describe the differences between Lincoln's authority and a
President's authority today. Why these differences?
- Who were the main characters in Gettysburg the night before
the speech? What was their role in the scene?
- What speech did Lincoln consider the height of American oratory?
What does this tell us about Lincoln's preference among styles of speaking
we have studied?
- At Gettysburg, did Everett sound different than Lincoln? How?
- Wills argues that Lincoln cleared "the infected atmosphere
of American History" (p. 38). What is the infection? How does Lincoln
clear it? Why does Wills believe that Lincoln does this better than Everett?
- What does the final page of the prologue lead you to expect
in the next pages?
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Chapter 1: Oratory of the Greek
Revival
Basic Questions
- What was the Greek Revival in the 19th century United States? What characteristics did it give to the culture of the time?
- How would the Greek Revival have shaped expectations of the audience at Gettysburg?
- How did the Greek Revival help shape Lincoln's speech? How did it influence Edward Everett's speech?
Questions indicating your deeper understanding
- Why would Everett have turned to a Greek battle
oration as a model for his oration? What does this tell you about the knowledge
of an American audience of 1863 that would not be true of an American audience
today?
- What was the subject of Everett's speech before Lafayette?
What speaking tradition that we have studied does this remind you of?
- What was Everett's role in the Greek Revival?
- Why did Everett believe history was important in oratory?
Which tradition of oratory we have studied does this continue? Given this
view of history, why might Everett have seen Gettysburg in the perspective
of continuity with the Greek Funeral Oration?
- What were the characteristics of the Greek funeral oration
that appear in Lincoln's speech?
- One way we can talk about a great speech is that it takes
its moment and transforms it (changes it) into something different. What
transformation does a eulogy attempt? How would you describe the transformation
Lincoln's speech seeks? Does its power to transform rest in its echoes
of the funeral oration?
- Wills concludes "The basic elements at work in the whole speech are life and death" (62). Do you agree? If so, how does the speech transform the deaths of soldiers into motivation? What does this owe to the Greek Revival?
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Chapter 2: Gettysburg and the Culture
of Death
Basic Questions
- What are the characteristics of nineteenth century America's perspective on death?
- What expectations did this perspective bring to the audience at Gettysburg?
- What is the rural cemetery movement? How does it influence the occasion and the speech at Gettysburg?
- How does Lincoln transform 19th century ideas about death into motivation for the war?
Questions indicating your deeper understanding
- Are there themes in the "rural cemetery" idea
that we have seen in American oratory? What in the American experience
to this time and the speaking which had shaped it help shape the speaking
of the rural cemetery movement? What other kinds of cemeteries are there
besides the "rural cemetery"? Is there a rural cemetery in our
area? If you were to attend a funeral of a famous person in a rural cemetery,
how would you expect the eulogy to differ from that you might hear in other
types of cemeteries?
- Why would you expect to find Mount Auburn in New England?
- What style we have studied does Everett's dedication
speech at Gettysburg fall into?
- Wills argues that Everett's speech is about death; Lincoln's
about rebirth (p. 77). Is he right? In what sense?
- What are the religious roots of rebirth? Can you identify
roots of it in American oratory?
- Wills writes: "If the argument of Lincoln is abstract,
generalizing, and intellectual, his imagery is organic and familial"
(pp. 87-88). Is this true? What does organic and familial imagery mean?
Do you see precedent for this in early American oratory?
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Chapter 3: The Transcendental Declaration
Basic Questions
- What are the important characteristics of "Transcendentalism"?
- How did 19th century transcendentalism influence the expectations of the audience at Gettysburg?
- What is the transcendental style in discourse? What makes the Declaration of Independence "transcendental"? In what ways does Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg use the transendental style?
- How is the transcendental style key to the motivational power of the speech?
Questions indicating your deeper understanding
- Wills cites several who argue that Lincoln would say one thing
to one audience, another thing to another audience. Does Wills agree with
these people?
- Are the politician's (like Lincoln) goals in speeches different
from the orator's (like Everett)? If so, how? How does Lincoln demonstrate
the truth of your answer?
- Describe Lincoln's position on slavery?
- Wills discusses in an earlier chapter the discomfort of modern
conservatives with Lincoln's position on the constitution. Describe how Lincoln
arrays the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. How does this
explain the conservative's discomfort?
- How does Lincoln's reading of the Declaration of Independence
differ from Jefferson's? Are there elements in American speaking in the early
nineteenth century that explain this change?If the Gettysburg Address had
been given in Republican Virginia rather than in 1863 by Lincoln, how would
it have been different?
- Do you see transcendentalism in the First Inaugural? the Second
Inaugural? Is Wills right about its influence on Lincoln?
- Who is Theodore Parker? Would his construction of the Declaration
of Independence (p. 107) surprise Jefferson? If so, how?
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Chapter 4: Revolution in Thought
Basic Questions
- Why does Wills believe Liincoln was a revolutionary?
- What is the revolution in thought? What way of understanding did the audience bring to Gettysburg that was changed after the speech?
- How does Lincoln alter the ideograph <union> in the Gettysburg Address?
Questions indicating your deeper understanding
- What does Wills believe that Lincoln admired in Clay and Webster?
What does this tell you about Lincoln's preference of styles of speaking we
have studied? (p. 121-32)
- How does the geography of Lincoln's home influence his rhetoric?
- Describe the two stories of the founding of America that separate
Lincoln and Webster from Calhoun and the South. (p. 125-32)
- Where does Lincoln get his arguments for union in his First
Inaugural Address? How does this influence shape the speech? (p. 125)
- Trace the rhetorical history of the "one people"
doctrine. the <union> ideograph?
- Wills argues that "Lincoln's constitutional view had
concrete legal consequences" (p. 132). What were those consequences?
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Chapter 5: Revolution in Style
Basic Questions
- What would be the audience's expectations for Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg? Where do those expectations come from? (The answer to this question probably comes more from your study of public address this semester than from Wills' chapter.)
- Describe Lincoln's characteristic pattern of style. How does it differ from the sentimental style?
- What characteristics of Lincoln's style permit him to achieve his purpose in such a short speech?
- What is revolutionary about Lincoln's style?
Questions indicating your deeper understanding
- Wills says of Everett's speech: "It was made obsolete
within a half-hour of the time when it was spoken" (p. 148). What does
he mean?
- Why does Wills believe that the concept of a "natural"
speech is untenable?
- What rhetorical theorist does Wills believe Lincoln relied
the most upon? What did he learn from him?
- What characteristics of Lincoln's style do you most admire?
What does Wills say is its source?
- Why does Wills believe speeches became shorter?
- What does Wills say differentiates Lincoln from Webster?
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Epilogue: The Other Address
Basic Questions
- What other speech does Wills pair with the Gettysburg
Address as a full expression of Lincoln's mind?
- Why does Wills say the other speech completes Gettysburg?
Questions indicating your deeper understanding
- What earlier American rhetorical form governed the Second
Inaugural Address?
- What attitude in Lincoln, exemplified in the Second Inaugural,
does Wills find remarkable? Is he correct that it is exemplified in the
Second Inaugural?
- When Lincoln finally turns to addressing slavery, which of the rhetorics of abolition does he adopt?
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