Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Gettysburg Address Redux: In Four Score and Seven Years, Will Government of the People Perish from Earth? - by Joe Romm

The speech is only 270 words long, but Lincoln employs an extended metaphor of birth, death, and resurrection to increase the coherence and impact of his brief remarks. Click to enlarge.
Tuesday marks the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg address, which Churchill termed, “the ultimate expression of the majesty of Shakespeare’s language.”  Coincidentally, four score and seven years from now is the year 2100, a time frame for global warming impacts that climatologists have analyzed in detail.

 But the speech is more than a master class in rhetoric.  It is about whether a nation “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal … can long endure.”  It is about ensuring that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Gettysburg Address Redux: In Four Score and Seven Years, Will Government of the People Perish from Earth?
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