As any American schoolchild knows, Abraham Lincoln rose from his humble birth in a log cabin to lead the country through its violent Civil War and proclaim the emancipation of slaves. Most of us are less familiar, though, with America\u2019s musical heritage. By exploring the overlapping terrain of these two seemingly unrelated fields, Lucas Lavoie\u2019s final essay for WR 100 \u201cLincoln and His Legacy\u201d comments simultaneously on Lincoln, America\u2019s twentieth-century musical heritage, and what it means to be an American. In an exemplary synthesis of different disciplines\u2014history, music, biography, political rhetoric\u2014Lucas shows us how different genres can speak to one another and, if we listen carefully, to us, too.<\/p>\n
Moving beyond the facts of Lincoln\u2019s remarkable life and times\u2014subjects of the earlier writing in the course\u2014this assignment asks students to trace the ways that later generations have used Lincoln\u2019s legacy. Lucas\u2019s discoveries in Mugar Library of several musical scores from the twentieth century initiated a deeper examination of the historical issues that prompted these compositions and their relevance to Lincoln\u2019s speeches and writings. By analyzing and comparing works of Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, and Vincent Persichetti, Lucas\u2019s essay argues that these composers at critical moments in history used Lincoln in musical forms to demonstrate a shared ideal of American democracy.<\/p>\n
One important virtue to recognize in this essay is its deft command of the language for analyzing music. Even for those who may not be music scholars, Lucas\u2019s clear explanations of musical examples allow readers to follow his points of comparison. Finally, this writing demonstrates that a student\u2019s passion in one field can certainly be applied to another\u2014as long as the student is willing to take a risk and to use their imagination.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0DAVID SHAWN<\/strong> As any American schoolchild knows, Abraham Lincoln rose from his humble birth in a log cabin to lead the country through its violent Civil War and proclaim the emancipation of slaves. Most of us are less familiar, though, with America\u2019s musical heritage. By exploring the overlapping terrain of these two seemingly unrelated fields, Lucas Lavoie\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4801,"featured_media":0,"parent":12893,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4801"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12924"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13143,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12924\/revisions\/13143"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWR 100: Lincoln & His Legacy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"