Abraham Lincoln has evolved into a mythic icon of American history. Versions of Lincoln in popular culture have cast him in various, surprising lights, including the motion picture Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Yet even as Lincoln becomes a commercial product, the implications of his life and work remain a complex topic that scholars in various fields are eager to untangle.
Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism, a book written by Prof. John Burt (ENG) is the newest addition to a long string of scholarly research that has attempted to unearth new meaning from the deceased president. It is an examination of whether a liberal political system can be used to mediate moral disputes. It looks at the debate over slavery in the Civil War era, specifically the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1958.
Burt began teaching at Brandeis in 1983. Six years later, in 1989, he started to put together the first pieces of the book, which is now over 800 pages. "It started out around 1,600 pages. ... I did cut it down," said Burt with a chuckle when asked if he ever considered shortening it to make it more readable.
The first kernels of inspiration for Tragic Pragmatism came out of Burt's research on Robert Penn Warren's Legacy of the Civil War.
"[Warren] treated Lincoln as a figure whose pragmatism and sense of tragedy enabled him to transcend the impact between North and South. That intrigued me," Burt said.
Burt's background in English offers a more "intensive" understanding of Lincoln, which differs from a historical method that tends to be "extensive," involving gathering many pieces of evidence to gain a bigger picture, according to Burt. "I looked very closely at Lincoln's speeches and letters looking for suggestions, nuances, shades of meaning, variations of tone. I read it closely the way you would read poetry," said Burt.
Although Burt is a professor in the English department, placing his recent work in a particular genre is complicated. His work is more nearly associated with history rather than American literature. However, even within the realm of history, it was difficult for Burt himself to say whether the book is history or political philosophy, or if either of those is sufficient. "I think the thing that's most distinctive about this book is that it sees Lincoln not as a political figure or even a historical figure but a figure who is thinking about major issues about the meaning of politics and the meaning of democracy," he said.
Burt's book was recently compared in a New York Times review to the other primary scholar who has studied Lincoln as a philosopher, Harry Jaffa. Burt learned a lot from Jaffa, "even if my point of view is somewhat different," Burt said.
One of the main differences between Jaffa and Burt is that while Jaffa used philosophers of natural law like Socrates and Plato to examine Lincoln, Burt brings Lincoln into the modern age using contemporary philosophers of liberal democracy, such as John Rawls and Immanuel Kant. "My view is that the Lincoln-Douglas debates are an episode in the history of liberal democracy, and Plato was not a philosopher of liberal democracy," Burt said.
The most challenging aspect of the project for Burt was escaping the "Hermeneutic Circles" of the writing process, which refers to the theory that neither the whole nor its parts can be understood without reference to each other. "I think the most challenging part was that many of the ideas are so intricately connected with each other so it was hard to figure out where to begin," he said.
A shorter version of the book is a possible future project, but Burt does not have immediate plans. "I suppose sometime in the future I might make a shorter, more popular edition but I really did write the book for an academic readership," he said.
Burt is on sabbatical this semester but has plans to return to teaching in the fall. "You never really quite know what Brandeis kids are going to say in class," Burt said. "They're always going to start some rat that you are going to chase-that is always terribly exciting all the time."
In addition to Burt's longstanding academic interest in Lincoln and 19th century political oratory, he also teaches a variety of other English courses, including many in American poetry. Burt is a poet himself and has, over the course of his career, released numerous volumes of poetry.
Burt is grateful for the unique degree of intellectual freedom that he is afforded as a professor at Brandeis.
"Many other universities nail their professors down into very specific niches. I imagine many English departments would have taken exception to my spending so long writing a book that is closer to history than to American literature. ... Other universities find that as something that makes them nervous. It has never been an issue at Brandeis," Burt said.
What fascinates Burt most about Lincoln as a person is his ability to humanely characterize his enemies, even in the midst of a tremendously violent war.
"Oftentimes, particularly if you think you're really right on an issue, you tend to see your opponent as demonic or stupid or not really morally like you." Burt said. "Lincoln never did that."