Books in Brief

Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington, by Daniel Mark Epstein (Ballantine, 379 pp., $24.95)

Daniel Mark Epstein, poet and biographer, has had the inspired idea of bringing together two quintessential Americans, Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman. In the first vignette here, from 1857, Lincoln lies on a couch in his law office, his legs so long they hang over the end. He is reading aloud, and at length, from the new Leaves of Grass. Heretofore, Lincoln’s oratory had been shaped by the influence of Euclid’s cool logic. Epstein argues persuasively that reading Whitman led Lincoln directly to the rhythms and imagery of his great “House Divided” speech.

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Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington, by Daniel Mark Epstein (Ballantine, 379 pp., $24.95)

Daniel Mark Epstein, poet and biographer, has had the inspired idea of bringing together two quintessential Americans, Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman. In the first vignette here, from 1857, Lincoln lies on a couch in his law office, his legs so long they hang over the end. He is reading aloud, and at length, from the new Leaves of Grass. Heretofore, Lincoln’s oratory had been shaped by the influence of Euclid’s cool logic. Epstein argues persuasively that reading Whitman led Lincoln directly to the rhythms and imagery of his great “House Divided” speech.