Quick Facts

• NAME: Abraham Lincoln
• OCCUPATION: U.S. President
• BIRTH DATE: February 12, 1809
• DEATH DATE: April 15, 1865
• PLACE OF BIRTH: Hodgenville, Kentucky

• PLACE OF DEATH: Washington, D.C.
• Nickname: Honest Abe
• Nickname: The Great Emancipator

Abraham Lincoln-biography

Abraham Lincoln is one of America’s greatest heroes because of his unique appeal. His is a remarkable story of the rise from humble beginnings to achieve the highest office in the land; then, a sudden and tragic death at a time when his country needed him most to complete the great task remaining before the nation. His distinctively human and humane personality and historical role as savior of the Union and emancipator of the slaves creates a legacy that endures. His eloquence of democracy, and his insistence that the Union was worth saving embody the ideals of self-government that all nations strive to achieve.

Childhood

Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Thomas was a strong and determined pioneer who found a moderate level of prosperity and was well respected in the community. The couple had two other children: Abraham’s older sister Sarah and younger brother Thomas, who died in infancy. Due to a land dispute, the Lincolns were forced to move from Kentucky to Perry County, Indiana in 1817, where the family “squatted” on public land to scrap out a living in a crude shelter, hunting game and farming a small plot. Thomas was eventually able to buy the land.

When young Abraham was nine years old his mother died of tremetol (milk sickness) at age 34 and the event was devastating on him. The nine-year-old Abraham grew more alienated from his father and quietly resented the hard work placed on him at an early age. A few months after Nancy’s death, Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, a Kentucky widow with three children of her own. She was a strong and affectionate woman with whom Abraham quickly bonded. Though both his parents were most likely illiterate, Sarah encouraged Abraham to read. It was while growing into manhood that he received his formal education—an estimated total of 18 months—a few days or weeks at a time. Reading material was in short supply in the Indiana wilderness. Neighbors recalled how Abraham would walk for miles to borrow a book. He undoubtedly read the family Bible and probably other popular books at that time such as Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrims Progress and Aesop’s Fables.

Law Career

In March, 1830, the family again migrated, this time to Macon County, Illinois. When his father moved the family again to Coles County, 22-year-old Abraham Lincoln struck out on this own, making a living in manual labor.  At six feet four inches tall, Lincoln was rawboned and lanky, but muscular and physically strong. He spoke with a backwoods twang and walked with a long-striding gait. He was known for his skill in wielding an ax and early on made a living splitting wood for fire and rail fencing. Young Lincoln eventually migrated to the small community of New Salem, Illinois where over a period of years he worked as a shopkeeper, postmaster, and eventually general store owner. It was here that Lincoln, working with the public, acquired social skills and honed story-telling talent that made him popular with the locals. When the Black Hawk War broke out in 1832 between the United States and Native Americans, the volunteers in the area elected Lincoln to be their captain. He saw no combat during this time, save for “a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes,” but was able to make several important political connections.

After the Black Hawk War, Abraham Lincoln began his political career and was elected to the Illinois state legislature in 1834 as a member of the Whig Party. He supported the Whig politics of government-sponsoreda

Entering Politics

Abraham Lincoln served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1847-1849. His foray into national politics seems to be as unremarkable as it was brief. He was the lone Whig from the state of Illinois, showing party loyalty, but finding few political allies. He used his term in office to speak out against the Mexican-American War and supported Zachary Taylor for president in 1848. His criticism of the war made him unpopular back home and he decided not to run for second term, but instead returned Springfield to practice law.

By the 1850s, the railroad industry was moving west and Illinois found itself becoming a major hub for various companies. Abraham Lincoln served as a lobbyist for the Illinois Central Railroad as its company attorney. Success in several court cases brought other business clients as well—banks, insurance companies and manufacturing firms. Lincoln also did some criminal trials. In one case, a witness claimed that he could identify Lincoln’s client who was accused of murder, because of the intense light from a full moon. Lincoln referred to an almanac and proved that the night in question had been too dark for the witness to see anything clearly. His client was acquitted.

About a year after the death of Anne Rutledge, Lincoln courted Mary Owens. The two saw each other for a few months and marriage was considered. But in time Lincoln called off the match. In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, a high spirited, well educated woman from a distinguished Kentucky family. In the beginning, many of the couple’s friends and family couldn’t

Elected President

In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise, and allowed individual states and territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. The law provoked violent opposition in Kansas and Illinois. And it gave rise to the Republican Party. This awakened Abraham Lincoln’ political zeal once again and his views on slavery moved more toward moral indignation. Lincoln joined the Republican Party in 1856.

In 1857, the Supreme Court issued its controversial decision Scott v. Sanford, declaring African Americans were not citizens and had no inherent rights. Though Abraham Lincoln felt African Americans were not equal to whites, he believed the America’s founders intended that all men were created with certain inalienable rights. Lincoln decided to challenge sitting U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas for his seat. In his nomination acceptance speech, he criticized Douglas, the Supreme Court, and President Buchanan for promoting slavery and declared “a house divided cannot stand.” The 1858 Senate campaign featured seven debates held in different cities all over Illinois. The two candidates didn’t disappoint the public, giving stirring debates on issues ranging from states’ rights to western expansion, but the central issue in all the debates was slavery. Newspapers intensely covered the debates, often times with partisan editing and interpretation. In the end, the state legislature elected Douglas, but the exposure vaulted Lincoln into national politics.

In 1860, political operatives in Illinois organized a campaign to support Lincoln for the presidency. On May 18th at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Abraham Lincoln surpassed better known candidates such as William Seward of New York and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio. Lincoln’s nomination was due in part to his moderate views on slavery, his support for improving the national infrastructure, and the protective tariff. In the general election, Lincoln faced is friend and rival, Stephan Douglas, this time besting him in a four-way race that included John C. Breckinridge of the Northern Democrats and John Bell of the Constitution Party.  Lincoln received not quite 40 percent of the popular vote, but carried 180 of 303 Electoral votes.

Abraham Lincoln selected a strong cabinet composed of many of his political rivals, including William Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates and Edwin Stanton. Formed out the adage “Hold your friends close and your enemies closer”, Lincoln’s Cabinet became one of his strongest assets in his first term in office… and he would need them. Before his inauguration in March, 1861, seven Southern states had

Civil War

Abraham Lincoln responded to the crisis wielding powers as no other present before him. He distributed $2,000,000 from the Treasury for war materiel without an appropriation from Congress; he called for 75,000 volunteers into military service without a declaration of war; and he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, arresting and imprisoning suspected Confederate sympathizers without a warrant. Crushing the rebellion would be difficult under any circumstances, but the Civil War, with its preceding decades of white-hot partisan politics, was especially onerous. From all directions, Lincoln faced disparagement and defiance. He was often at odds with his generals, his Cabinet, his party, and a majority of the American people.

The Union Army’s first year and a half of battlefield defeats made it especially difficult to keep morale up and support strong for a reunification the nation. With the hopeful, but by no means conclusive Union victory at Antietam on September 22, 1862, Abraham felt confident enough to reshape the cause of the war from “union” to abolishing slavery. Gradually, the war effort improved for the North, though more by attrition then by brilliant military victories. But by 1864, the Confederacy had hunkered down to a guerilla war and Lincoln was convinced he’d be a one-term president. His nemesis, George B. McClellan, the former commander of the Army of the Potomac, challenged him for the presidency, but the contest wasn’t even close. Lincoln received 55 percent of the popular vote and 212 of 243 Electoral votes. On March 28, 1865, General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Virginia, surrendered his forces to Union General Ulysses S. Grant and the war for all intents and purposes was over.

Assassination

Reconstruction began during the war as early as 1863 in areas firmly under Union military control. Abraham Lincoln favored a policy of quick reunification with a minimum of retribution. But he was confronted by a radical group of Republicans in the Senate and House that wanted complete allegiance and repentance from former Confederates. Before a political battle had a chance to firmly develop, Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, by well-known actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Lincoln was taken from the theater to a Petersen House across the street and laid in a coma for nine hours before dying the next morning. His body lay in state at the Capitol before a funeral train took him back to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.

drama and collaborative-finals

8 Quotes We Owe to William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare. Just seeing that name takes me to a place where coffee flows, procrastination runs rampant, and book reports come back marked down for tardiness. Unless you reside under a rock or still working your way through high-school, you’ve heard of Mr. Shakespeare. Today’s infographic speaks on Shakespeare’s significance in regards to the English language, but not in the typical way.

Down below are eight quotes, phrases, and saying that can be credited to William Shakespeare. I’m sure you’ve heard at least one of them used in your lifetime. My intrigue with this infographic lies in the notion that Shakespeare has so many quotes and writings that are held in high regard by scholars worldwide, yet these get left out. I’m not saying that quotes such as “Et tu, Brute?” and “the world is my oyster” should be studied interchangeably. I’m just taking note of the vast influence Shakespeare had over language.
Share your favorite Shakespeare quotes in the comment box and have an awesome hump day!

Banquet Scene from the Tale of Nastagio degli Onesti, in Boccaccio's "Decameron

http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/102441.htm

The Decameron

Dedication: Boccaccio writes this book for women. This is one of the revolutionary element of the book. Why women? Because, says Boccaccio, they are being wrongfully neglected. They have no saying in shaping their destinies, they have no outlet to express their feelings, they are left in their castles by their fathers, brothers, husbands with nothing to do. [Obviously Boccaccio is talking about the women of the nobility]
The background for this book is the black death of 1348, which killed a large number of people in Florence. Within this environment Boccaccio creates the structure of the book.
The premise: The black death is terrorizing the city of Florence, and is causing a complete breakdown of all moral values. Surrounded by this horrible death, people loose respect for each other. Boccaccio is, for all purposes, describing what is happening as hell on earth. (He brought to earth what Dante had placed in the Inferno)
Within this dissolution, one Spring morning seven young ladies meet in a church where they went to pray. Soon they put their prayers aside and turn to a more pragmatic topic: how to survive the rampant death. After considering various possibilities, they decide that it is their duty to preserve their lives by getting out of the city, and isolate themselves in the countryside, away from death. However, in their opinion, they will be successful only if they are joined by some men. (At this time women felt that a man's guidance was necessary).
In the meantime, three young men, friends and relatives to the ladies, enter the church, and are asked to go along. They agree, and the next morning they leave the city with a few of their servants who have survived death. They go to a beautiful country villa, and there they will wait for the pestilence to be over.
But in order for the group to function well, they decide that they need a ruler (king or queen). So, in a democratic fashion, the decide that each one of them will be king or queen for a day, and everyone will obey and follow his/her rules. They also decide to spent the time entertaining themselves, eating well, singing, dancing, and telling stories: one story each for each day.
These stories represent the content of the book. Therefore, we have ten stories for each day. These stories portray all aspects of society, form the most noble behavior to most vulgar and depraved. This is the world of the Decameron. Here we find merchants alongside with kings, clerics, and the common people.
It is a complete representation of human behavior. It is the "human comedy," where the real life becomes the centerpiece (Dante, instead, saw life from a distance). In fact the Decameron completes Dante's vision of life. This is humanity as it is actually behaving in everyday circumstances.
From this point of view, the Decameron does not belong, as it has been suggested, to the new culture centered on Petrarch. Rather it is more properly medieval, as it is encyclopedic in nature (like Dante's Commedia).
However, this work is what we consider today as politically incorrect. It disregards all rules of literature and accepted etiquette. As already mentioned, it is dedicated to women, written with the specific purpose to entertain them, as they are bored during long days with nothing to do. This is a very modern concept: the artist addresses and meets the needs of a specific audience.
In fact, the purpose of the book was so out of place that Boccaccio had practically all the intellectual establishment against him (see his defense in the Introduction to day 4). Even he himself, later in his life, denounced his own masterpiece. In fact, the scholars who immediately followed him admired his scholarly works, not the Decameron. It will take 150 years for the book to be recognized for its artistic, intellectual, and linguistic values.
On the other hand, this book was well received by an audience that was outside the official intelligentsia. It found a crowd of imitators already in its own time in writers who realized that there was an audience for narrative. In fact, the Decameron ended up as being one of the most imitated books in history. No one escaped Boccaccio's influence: he set the rules for story-telling. His presence is felt in the entire Europe, in English literature his influence is felt by many, to name just two, Chaucer and Shakespeare.
With the Decameron, Boccaccio takes the short story and makes it come to life. His characters are, in fact, psychologically alive; he gives the plot and the characters an evolutionary development. In short, he took a minor art form -- telling short anecdotal stories, and created an artistic form.
The Decameron, contrary to other collections of stories of the time, is not a series of unrelated plots. Here, each story becomes a part of the whole. These stories are complete in themselves, and yet they add to the completeness of the book. The stories are in fact grouped by themes and by authorship (the story-tellers). Each day covers a specific theme.
The external structure (the ten young people escaping death to preserve life) is itself a story which contains all other stories; some individual stories have their own stories within, etc. Each story is characterized by the person who tells it. For examples, Dioneo (one of the ten) reserves his position to be the last one to tell his story so that he can be free to close the day with his peculiar tales that do not necessary follow to the themes of the day. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales uses the same concept of a large story as the framework which includes all other stories. The frame-story will be a description of a pilgrimage to Canterbury during which the characters tell their stories.
And at the center of this world we find humanity, in all its variety. People are seen as victim of jokes, victims to human cruelty, or survivor to misfortunes, etc. But what stands out in all this is the triumph of intelligence (mostly in day 6).

Introduction to Boccaccio

Boccaccio's Life: Boccaccio made a point of presenting himself by giving details of his life. However, his account may be the most unreliable. In fact, being a master of storytelling, chances are that he made his life conform to the character he made of himself. He says that he was born in Paris, a fruit of a secret love affair his father had with the king's daughter. Then, as his father moved back to Florence, he was brought along and destined to live with a cruel stepmother.
But he was able to get away from all of this when he went to live in Naples, where he was supposed to study accounting, since his father wanted him to be a merchant.
Here in Naples, he met Fiammetta, an illegitimate daughter of the king of Naples: this was a very difficult love because supposedly she was being unfaithful to him. Nevertheless, Boccaccio says that he became a poet and storyteller because of her.
However, the facts are quite different. Very likely, Giovanni Boccaccio was born in Florence, from a widow who had an affair with Boccaccio's father. And Fiammetta was a daughter of a noblewoman from Naples, wife of a rich merchant, and expert in the matters of love.
Boccaccio's family came from the town of Certaldo, his father was Boccaccio da Chellino, who moved to Florence to practice the profession of merchant. In fact, we know that in 1310 he was working for the Bardi Financial House, one of the most important financial institution in Europe. His employment lasted until 1342, when the institution went bankrupt.
As such he was in Paris a few times, including the time of Giovanni's birth (1313). However, it is certain that his son was born in Florence (or perhaps in Certaldo) from this affair in the latter part of the year 1313.
Later, in 1320, Boccaccio's father married a lady called Margherita dei Mondali (the famous stepmother), who was a relative of Beatrice Portinari, loved by Dante a few years earlier. Hence Boccaccio's interest for Dante's works.
Boccaccio did go to Naples around 1325 where he lived at the court of the kings of Naples, supported by the Bardi financial institution, with the specific purpose of getting the training needed to be a merchant.
Naples was at the time one of the most influential political and economical centers in Europe. Here Boccaccio heard stories of incredible travels, which, along with the environment of the city, inspired some of the best stories of his major work, The Decameron.
This leisurely life is present mostly in his youthful works, such as Filocolo, Ameto, Fiammetta, in which one can feel an intense passion for life.
Meanwhile, Boccaccio studies Mathematics and Arithmetic for his future career, although he cares little for these studies. He prefers poetry and other academic subjects. In fact he will say that he wasted time studying mathematics.
His life in Naples was easy. He lived in a fairy-tale world, with no financial worries. He was in the environment of merchants, it is the middle class society that he got to know so well.
His stay in Naples lasted until 1340, enough time to assimilate the intellectual culture of the time. In a way he learned from real life, and not from schooling. Here he studied medieval lyric poetry (Provençal, Italian, and Dante). In this environment he invented his passionate love story centered on a gentlewoman called Fiammetta. In fact she is present in most of his works up to and including The Decameron.
These early works are based on conventional writing forms of the time, mostly epic narrative. Herre they are:
Filocolo: the story of Florio and Biancifiore (1336);
Filostrato, the story of Troilo and Griselda, from the French Roman de Troie, later imitated by Chaucer and Shakespeare in their Troilus and Cressida.
Teseida, in 12 cantos, an epic poem written in 1340-41, which tells the story of Theseus's deeds against Thebe and the Amazons. But the plot is an excuse for Boccaccio to describe a triangle love affair that put against each other Arcita and Palemone, who are both in love with Emilia, a sister of Ippolita who was Theseus's wife. This story became the plot of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, in the Canterbury Tales.
Later he wrote other minor books of prose and poetry, some of them with allegorical meanings. Among those, one stands out: Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta, which portrays the state of mind of a woman in love as she is betrayed by her lover. This is part of Boccaccio's fictional account of his love misadventures.
About this time he was forced to return to Florence because the financial institution of the Bardi went bankrupt, and the source of his income vanished. This was a sour turn of events for Boccaccio. His happy life ended. And so his works changed style, reflecting these changes. His happiness was over, and he would always feel nostalgia for the happy time spent in Naples.
The financially difficult years between 1342 and 1348 were crucial for his literary career. However, his economical difficulties did not destroy his interests for creative writing. In Florence, he comes in contact with the Florentine intellectual circles, and his artistic writings become more "realistic," meaning that he turned his attention to everyday life. In the meantime he travels throughout North Italy.
During these travels Boccaccio observes Nature, which is portrayed in his Ninfale fiesolano, the last verso work before the The Decameron.
In 1348 he is in Florence, where he witnesses the black death, a bubonic plague that hit Europe and killed more than half of the population, especially in cities. The effect of the black death is described in the Introduction to the Decameron. After these events he remains in Florence to administer what's left of the family business.
Between 1348 and 1351 Boccaccio writes the Decameron.
Then Boccaccio undergoes a religious crisis, which will affect his writings from then on. In fact, he turns to the official culture, obviously influenced by Petrarch, whom he met as he was traveling. When he was in Romagna, he also met Dante's daughter, who was in the monastery of Santo Stefano, in Ravenna.
At this time he became a diplomat, traveling all over. Among his assignments, he was the one who represented Florence, when in 1365, the Pope returned to Rome from Avignon.
Throughout these years he feels disappointed by the way he lives, especially because he has little money. He retires in the town of Certaldo to get away from Florence. Here many humanist scholars visit him, as he is already a legend. And during these years, following Petrarch's lead, he writes many scholarly books.
In the meantime, he becomes a deacon, with the purpose to straighten up the souls of the sinners. This is Christian Humanism.
Most of the works written during these years were in Latin, however, he wrote Corbaccio in Italian. This is a book to chastise women (in the early 50's). In this book he criticizes the nature and behavior of women, a definite shift from the free-spirited Decameron.
Later in life he wrote also, in Italian, two books on Dante: a Life of Dante and a series of lessons on the Inferno. He was giving these lectures in a Florentine church.
But, as mentioned, the majority of the writing done between 1350 and his death in 1374 was in Latin: the most important is Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, a dictionary of mythology. He began this book in 1350, and kept working on it until he died. In this book (chpt.15 and 16, Boccaccio defends his theories of poetry -- a similar defense is present in the introduction to the fourth day of the Decameron).
He also wrote:
Bucolicum Carmen (1351-66): allegorical poems based on contemporary events. Here Boccaccio follows the same pattern begun by Dante and employed by Petrarch.
De Claribus Mulieribus (1360-74): a collection of lives of the most famous women from ancient times to Middle Ages (parallel to Petrarch's book on the most illustrious men).
De Montibus, silvis, fontibus (1355-74): on the geographic culture of the time.
De Casibus Virorum Illustrium (1355-74): to show the vanity of earthly wealth.