Allusions

Allusions: "That the nation, 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."


 * Lincoln's usage of the imagery of birth, life, and death in reference to a nation "brought forth," "conceived," and that shall not "perish."was inspired by Senator Daniel Webster, the "Second Reply to Hayne", in which Webster famously thundered "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" Specifically, in this January 26, 1830 speech before the United States Senate,

"Four score and seven" was an allusion to the King James Version of the Bible's Psalms 90:10, in which man's lifespan is given as "threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years

"our fathers brought forth, upon 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"
 * the begining of the speech Lincoln puts the Civil War in perspective as a test of the success of the American Revolution

Do you think the allusion to the American Revolution help bring nationalism back into the eyes of the south? Why or why not?

WIth Out the allusions used in in the Gettysburg Addresss do you think that Lincoln's speech would be as powerful if he did not refrence anything in his speech?

The allusions Lincoln uses create imageary, what kind of imagery do you get from the allusions?