Lincoln: A Great President and a Great Poet?

In light of Presidents’ Day, Associate English Professor Dr. Faith Barrett reveals the lesser-known, more artistic side of Abraham Lincoln:

President Lincoln is known for his linguistic mastery in penning the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation. So, how did the young Midwestern man with an illiterate father go on to write some of the most monumental speeches in history? Hard work, self-discipline and a little splash of poetry.

Through poetry, Lincoln was able to test writing techniques and find his own identity—one that would later lead him to political power. Even his earliest poems—brief satirical lines written in the margins of his childhood notebooks—contained the same witty, self-deprecating humor for which Lincoln is so beloved in his speeches.

“The strength of affection for Lincoln is because of this archetype—he’s an impoverished farmer who goes on to be president of the United States,” explains Barrett, who is the author of Abraham Lincoln and Poetry, a chapter featured in the Cambridge Companion to Abraham Lincoln.

“Most Lincoln scholars pass his poetry off as being too conventional, but it is his conventionalism that makes him so relevant to the American public, especially during a time of heightened political tension between the North and South,” says Barrett. “He embodies American hope that self-made men truly can succeed.”