Abraham Lincoln in his Times Chapter 2 Child of the Frontier Part 4

Abraham Lincoln in his Times Chapter 2 Child of the Frontier Part 4

truth,” remarked a journalist who met with Lincoln several times during the Civil War. 73 Poetry gave order and meaning to life experiences that tended toward the chaotic or uncontrolled. If, as Mikhail Bakhtin suggests, language is a centripetal force that helps regulate centrifugal reality, we can say that Lincoln found in poetry, the most structured form of language, a means of arranging and giving meaning to his experience. 74 In turn, he gave structure and meaning to the national experience in pithy, poetic speeches that had the cadences and resonant imagery of poetry. Before he reached the point that he could do so, he went through a process of maturation that broadened his vision and engaged him with the cultural and political world around him. This process was sped by his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln. FAMILY RELATIONS AND TEENAGE ROMANCES IN INDIANA The period Abe lived in Indiana in his stepmother’s presence, from 1819 to 1830, was a crucial time in his formation. Many of the trai…