Great Speeches of the 20th Century

This month we embarked on something a little different as we all read a different text.

A few years ago The Guardian published 14 booklets of Great Speeches considered worthy of this title. Each booklet includes an introduction by a relevant writer, the speech (sometimes shortened) and a short article from the newspaper at the time.

The range was wide - in order of reading they were made by
General de Gaulle - on the BBC in 1940
Emmeline Pankhurst - in the US in 1913
Nikita Khrushchev - at the 20th Congess in Moscow in 1956
Aneurin Bevan - in the House of Commons in 1956
Nelson Mandela - from the lawcourts in Pretoria in 1964
FD Roosevelt - in Washington in 1933
Virginia Woolf - in Cambridge in 1926

Not only was the subject matter diverse so were the styles. From the rousing, rallying cry of de Gaulle who proclaimed that he 'now spoke for France' and urged all Frenchmen to continue to bear arms against the enemy - the foundation of the resistance - to the reasoned arguments of Nelson Mandela at his trial for treason.

The elements of oratory first (or so we believe) practised by the ancient Greeks still underpin great speeches. First get the audience's attention then hold it - by means of persuasiive argument, rhetorical questions, pregnant pauses, repitition, catch phrases and the title of the speech (The Winds of Change), emotive words and the all important inclusiiveness of talking about ' you and me'. The need for a fine understanding of the language, of idiom, figures of speech, punctuation are never more important and we see this now in a few of our modern orators from William Hague to Barrack Obama. Short, simple yet pithy sentences with little jargon and above all phrases which will resonate with the audience are most effective - Churchill, and of course Shakespeare before him, was a master of this. Never forget humour and empathy.

Nelson was on trial for his life and employed many of these techniques, remembering that he was a lawyer and used to holding the attention of the court. Virginia was talking to a select group of intellectuals and could use complex terms which would not have been as easily appreciated by a mass audience.

FDR spoke in a time of great crisis during the Great Depression as did Nye Bevan over what became known as the Suez Crisis. Both speeches resonate with us today. FDR spoke of the need for farmers to receive a fair price (in the news just this week in the UK) and for people to pull together while he criticised the banks and finance houses (need I say more). Nye Bevan's prophetic words about the finding of an excuse for intervention and bombing another country on flimsy evidence can be directly related to Tony Blair and his absolute determination to bomb Iraq.

Khrushchev's lenghthy speech against the Cult of the Individual referred to the monster that was Stalin. Considering all that had gone before it seems he took a great risk and must have had considerable support in the Party to reveal the horrors of that regime. He foresaw the end of Communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union but we do now see again with despair the rise of another individual - Vladimir Putin.

Emmeline Pankhurst gave her speech in the US to the Women's Suffrage Association. She was a small smartly dressed woman who had been imprisoned many times during the past year and a half. She urged 'Deeds not Words' and that women should take action in order to achieve freedom from what she considered servitude.

The background to each speech was particularly important as most were made long ago. In the case of Nye Bevan and Suez the events surrounding the crisis were very complex and intimately linked with the aftermath of WWII, political alliances and the establishment of Israel.

We discussed each speech - both in context and in tone - and noted particularly how relevant they were to our modern times. As it is said 'some things never change' even though great social and economic changes take place much remains - women juggling with childcare who having gained the freedom to work in a 'man's world' still feel the biological pull of motherhood - banks and large corporations controlling the producers either through lending rates or pricing of commodities - politicians lying to us.........

This is of course a select list of speeches made by The Guardian and no doubt we could all come up with others - or could we?