SOAPSTone
A guide to speaker, audience and purpose. Use it when you need help getting started; follow the text and guiding question when you build your response.
TECHNIQUEGettysburg Address — Abraham Lincoln
Delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, Gettysburg, on 19 November 1863. This public-domain speech survives in several versions; the examples here use the Nicolay draft.
Read the Nicolay draft at the Library of Congress ↗Historical context and manuscript versions · Library of Congress ↗
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Speaker
Who speaks, in what role, and how is authority established? Distinguish a speaker from a publisher.
Lincoln speaks as US president, but repeatedly places himself within a collective ‘we’. His position gives authority; the pronoun shares responsibility.
Occasion
What immediate event and wider circumstances shape the text? Use known context; do not invent it.
The immediate occasion is a cemetery dedication. The ongoing Civil War gives the ceremony a larger question: whether the nation’s founding commitment can endure.
Audience
Who is directly addressed? What larger audience might the text reach? Identify clues.
Those attending the dedication are the immediate audience. References to the nation and collective duty also address a wider public. Neither group is a single uniform reader.
Purpose
What does the speaker invite that audience to think, feel or do? Distinguish this from the subject.
The speech honors the dead while redirecting the living toward continuing their work. It moves beyond commemorating a battle to renewing a political commitment.
Subject
What does the text literally discuss? Keep this brief so you can move on to its choices.
The founding of the nation, the war, the soldiers’ sacrifice, and the responsibilities of the living.
Tone
Name an attitude precisely, then support it with specific words. Trace changes rather than attaching one adjective to everything.
The tone moves from solemn commemoration toward resolve. The sequence ‘we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow’ limits the speakers’ power before the turn toward duty.
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