Great Eulogies Throughout History

Great Eulogies Throughout History

Author: James Daley

Publisher: Courier Dover Publications

Published: 2016-09-21

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0486805328

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Derived from the Greek for "word of praise," the eulogy is a longstanding tradition of recognition and remembrance. The speeches and essays gathered in this collection offer thought-provoking commemorations of the lives and deeds of politicians, authors, poets, and other influential individuals. Starting with Pericles' Funeral Oration, a classic example of the rite, these writings turn their focus to historical figures of the past two centuries, from America's Founding Fathers to Nelson Mandela. Nineteenth-century selections include the stirring address read at Beethoven's funeral; a reminiscence of Charlotte Brontë by her great literary hero, William Thackeray; recollections of Henry David Thoreau by Ralph Waldo Emerson; and eulogies for Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, and Voltaire, on the one-hundredth anniversary of his death. Among the latter-day tributes are salutes to Albert Einstein, T. S. Eliot, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as President Ronald Reagan's farewell to the Challenger astronauts, Stephen Spender's paean to W. H. Auden, Bob Costas's eulogy for Mickey Mantle, and many other moving words of praise for men and women whose achievements serve as an ongoing source of inspiration.


The Book Of Eulogies

The Book Of Eulogies

Author: Phyllis Theroux

Publisher: Scribner

Published: 2015-01-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781501112423

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This invaluable anthology is the first and only collection dedicated to the art of the eulogy. For the past several years, Phyllis Theroux has collected the most eloquent and moving writing commemorating a death, assessing a life, or offering solace to the bereaved. Ranging from Thomas Jefferson's magisterial eulogy for George Washington to Anna Quindlen's affectionate memorial for her grandmother; from Helen Keller's words about her dear friend Mark Twain to Adlai Stevenson's about Eleanor Roosevelt, The Book of Eulogies establishes that great eulogies are a celebration of remarkable lives that can illuminate, confirm, inspire, and redirect our own. Theroux has included some of the world's most well-known tributes, such as Pericles' Funeral Oration, Jules Michelet's appreciation of Jeanne d'Arc, Victor Hugo's ringing words on the one hundredth anniversary of Voltaire's death, Cardinal Suenens's eulogy for Pope John XXIII. But most of the eulogized assembled here are eighteenth- to twentieth-century Americans, and the stories of their lives illuminate our history with a particularly intimate light. In Robert Kennedy's extemporaneous remarks upon hearing of the death of Martin Luther King, or Eugene McCarthy's tribute to his friend and colleague, Hubert Humphrey, the values, wisdom, and spirit of both the eulogized and the eulogizer are revealed. The Book of Eulogies is a sourcebook for anyone who must find words of solace, understanding, and inspiration on the occasion of a beloved's death. It is also a treasury of astonishing eloquence, passion, and humanity -- a record of extraordinary lives, seen through the eyes of those who knew and loved them.


Grief and Genre in American Literature, 1790-1870

Grief and Genre in American Literature, 1790-1870

Author: Desirée Henderson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1317124480

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Focusing on the role of genre in the formation of dominant conceptions of death and dying, Desirée Henderson examines literary texts and social spaces devoted to death and mourning in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America. Henderson shows how William Hill Brown, Susanna Rowson, and Hannah Webster borrowed from and challenged funeral sermon conventions in their novelistic portrayals of the deaths of fallen women; contrasts the eulogies for George Washington with William Apess's "Eulogy for King Philip" to expose conflicts between national ideology and indigenous history; examines Frederick Douglass's use of the slave cemetery to represent the costs of slavery for African American families; suggests that the ideas about democracy materialized in Civil War cemeteries and monuments influenced Walt Whitman's war elegies; and offers new contexts for analyzing Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's The Gates Ajar and Emily Dickinson's poetry as works that explore the consequences of female writers claiming authority over the mourning process. Informed by extensive archival research, Henderson's study eloquently speaks to the ways in which authors adopted, revised, or rejected the conventions of memorial literature, choices that disclose their location within decisive debates about appropriate gender roles and sexual practices, national identity and citizenship, the consequences of slavery, the nature of democratic representation, and structures of authorship and literary authority.


In the Name of the Father

In the Name of the Father

Author: Francois Furstenberg

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2007-04-24

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1101651040

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this revelatory and genuinely groundbreaking study, François Furstenberg sheds new light on the genesis of American identity. Immersing us in the publishing culture of the early nineteenth century, he shows us how the words of George Washington and others of his generation became America's sacred scripture and provided the foundation for a new civic culture, one whose reconciliation with slavery unleashed consequences that haunt us still. A dazzling work of scholarship from a brilliant young historian, In the Name of the Father is a major contribution to American social history.