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Article: Goon, warrior, communitarian, and mythos: the Lincoln Legend of dramatic literature and live performance.(Critical essay)
- Article from:
- Theatre History Studies
- Article date:
- January 1, 2008
- Author:
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Roy Basler offers a noteworthy if not comprehensive distinction between historicized Lincoln biographical narratives and the Lincoln Legend, postulating that the former "is a catalogue of detached facts, which have no other connection than time, place, circumstance, and cause, and effect," while the latter is the "creation of actions according to the unchangeable forms of human nature, as existing in the mind of the creator, which is itself the image of all other minds." (1) To be sure, the image of Lincoln that resides in the hearts and minds of many today is not significantly influenced by biographers present or past, because "Abraham Lincoln" is largely a mythic ...