This Civil War sesquicentennial presentation in the museum's Union
Theater is free and open to the public, but reservations must be
made by calling 217-558-8934. A book signing will follow.
The program will be presented by Randall Fuller, author of "From
Battlefields Rising: How the Civil War Transformed American
Literature." Fuller's book and talk explore the profound impact of
the war on writers including Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson and Frederick
Douglass.
Whitman was deeply affected by his years spent ministering to
wounded soldiers, and his later works reflected it. Dickinson
suffused the anguish of war in poems she wrote from afar. Meanwhile,
Hawthorne temporarily ceased writing as he was overwhelmed by
reading military reports and talking with soldiers. The Civil War
forever changed America's early idealism, and consequently its
literature, into something far different than it had been before the
war.
Prior to the war, America's leading writers had helped the young
nation realize its immense potential. When the Civil War began --
what Whitman called "the volcanic upheaval of the nation" -- it
forced writers to engage in new styles of communication that
conveyed the savagery and enormity of the conflict, and embraced
social and cultural experimentation.
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Fuller is the recipient of the Christian Gauss Award for "From
Battlefields Rising." The award is given annually by the Phi Beta
Kappa Society for books in the field of literary scholarship and
criticism. Copies of Fuller's books may be purchased in advance or
the night of the program from the store at the presidential museum.
Fuller is professor of English at Drury University and is also
the author of "Emerson's Ghosts." Currently he is working on a book
about American scientists-naturalists who debated, fought over and
eventually accepted Darwin's theory of evolution. He lives in
Springfield, Mo., with his wife, Juliet.
For more information on programs and exhibits at the Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, visit
www.presidentlincoln.org.
[Text from
Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
file received from the
Illinois Historic
Preservation Agency]
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