Precious Nonsense: The Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's Epitaphs on His Children, and Twelfth Night

Precious Nonsense is a fascinating exploration of the unique ways in which language, pattern, and meaning intersect in some of literature's most revered works. Examining Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's epitaphs on his children, and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the book argues that what makes these texts so compelling is not just their depth of insight, but their underlying structure of "nonsense"—patterns and phrases that seem logical yet defy straightforward interpretati...