The Suicide's Soliloquy

"The Suicide's Soliloquy"

Author	Anonymous (possibly Abraham Lincoln)
Published	August 25, 1838
Publisher	The Sangamo Journal

"The Suicide's Soliloquy" is an unsigned poem, likely written by Abraham Lincoln, first published on August 25, 1838, in The Sangamo Journal, a four-page Whig newspaper in Springfield, Illinois.

Shortly after Lincoln's assassination, one of Lincoln's personal friends, Joshua Speed, told William Herndon, Lincoln's biographer, that Lincoln had written and published "a few lines under the gloomy title of Suicide", although the actual article has never been found. In 1997, independent writer Richard Lawrence Miller found The Suicide's Soliloquy and, in 2002, came to realize that it matched the descriptions of Lincoln's missing article. Although it seems to follow the same themes and style as Lincoln's other works, there is still controversy over whether it was actually written by Lincoln.

Lincoln authorship controversy

Arguments in favour of Lincoln authorship

The poem was published in the Sangamo Journal, a newspaper that Lincoln has previously published his other works in before. The poem found was published in 1838, the exact date given by Lincoln's friend, Joshua Speed. The poem includes a smiliar meter, sync, dictation and tone with many other poems published by Lincoln and according to Richard Miller, the man who discovered the poem, the theme of the interplay between rationality and madness is "especially Lincolnian in spirit". Lincoln suffered a patch of severe depression and in 1835 he suffered suicidal urges following the death of a friend from typhoid. In addition to this many of the symptoms of depression that Lincoln expressed in letters and several other pieces are discussed in this poem. For example, one of Lincoln's symptoms was described as a "storm in his brain, punctuated by thunderclaps of thought--self-critical, fearful, despairing". This symptom was demonstrated in one of Lincoln's other pieces in which he wrote of an "intensity of thought, which will some times wear the sweetest idea thread-bare and turn it to the bitterness of death". This symptom comes into the poem when the narrator claims "To ease me of this power to think,/ That through my bosom raves,/ I'll headlong leap from hell's high brink,/ And wallow in its waves."

Arguments against Lincoln authorship

Although Joshua Speed attributes the same date of publication there is a general lack of agreement on the year the poem was published. Jesse Weik, the co-author of Lincoln's biography stated that the lost Lincoln poem was published in 1841, while William Herndon's notes from an interview with Lincoln's closest friends, Joshua Speed, said that the lost poem was published in 1838. They assumed it had followed Lincoln’s second suicidal breakdown, known to historians as the “fatal first of January.” There was a period during 1835 when Lincoln's friends became concerned for his safety due to his talk of suicide and created what would be considered today a suicide watch. Although the copious amount of uncertainty around the poem, Lincoln scholars attribute that "it looks like Lincoln. It sounds like Lincoln. It probably is Lincoln."

Further reading

• Newly Discovered Poem Likely Lincoln's, Neal Conan, Talk of the Nation, NPR, June 9, 2004
• Poem of the Week: "The Suicide's Soliloquy" by Abraham Lincoln, Shenandoah Literary Review
• Was Suicide Poem Written by Lincoln? from US news on NBC News.com
• Lincoln's "Suicide" Poem: Has It Been Found?, Richard Lawrence Miller, For the People, Spring 2004

See also

• Jesse W. Weik