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Similarities Between The Gettysburg Address And Pericles

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Aristotle’s three acts of intellect are used on numerous occasions throughout the Gettysburg Address and Pericles’ Funereal Oration. One may ponder the question “How are the Gettysburg Address and Pericles’ Funereal Oration related given that one is written in 400 B.C and the other in 1863?” The beauty of Aristotle’s acts of intellect is that one can analyze two speeches written 2263 years apart and realize the intense parallels. Though Lincoln may not have realized it when writing the Gettysburg Address, Pericles’ Funeral Oration served in many ways as a foundation or model for his speech. The two can be compared in terms of similarity in many ways. The first is context in the sense that they were both following a major battle. Lincoln was addressing those in Gettysburg following a gruesome civil war battle, while Pericles was addressing a group of Athenians following the Peloponnesian War. Another similarity was the message of both speeches. What the message of both Lincoln and Pericles’ speech was that those who died in battle did not die in vain, rather they died fighting for a noble cause that was much bigger than themselves. The two speeches are almost identical in overall message except for one concept; the view of the enemy. At no point within the Gettysburg Address did Abraham Lincoln insult the confederacy However, in the case of Pericles, he consistently insults Sparta. He talks about how superior Athens is to all other nations and that those who died had to

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