The Eloquence of Churchill

THE ELOQUENCE OF CHURCHILLl GILBERT NORWOOD THE Editors have suggested that this latest collection of Mr Churchill's be reviewed purely as examples of eloquence. My pleasure in· consenting was due only in part to admiration for the -Prime Minister's character, methods and oratory:, quite as strong was the conviction that a detailed appraisal of artistry in speech might be not only interesting of itself but also serviceable as a protest against the widespread neglect, not to say derision, 'into which genuine eloquence is falling. Again and again we hear that Heloquence is out of fashion," and the level of oratory in the British House' of Commons has become a bywqrd. Even Mr Churchill's achievement, though it enjoys the immense yet partly irrelevant advantage that it deals with matters of unique rn,oment, seems likely to suffer in some degree from the current distaste for nobility in public speaking. One' of our most excellent warcommentators , Mr Raymond Gram Swing, has perpetrated an ineptitude which the publishers have seen fit to print on the jacket of this volume. "Nothing quite so much misses the importance of Mr Churchill's speeches as to say that they are examples of superb English rhetoric. What makes his speeches invaluable is not their technique. It is what he has to tell." S~ch a pronouncement hardly deserves refutation: on these Jines, any truthful and clear report of events, which a thousand. living journalists could produce, equals any oration here printed. Nor is Mr Swing happier in his choice of words. Eloquence abounds in these pages, but the rhetoric whereof he speaks can scarcely be discovered. Rhetoric depends on words, eloquence uses words,; rhetoric is a matter of fashion, eloquence cannot become obsolete; rhetoric is a mass of brilliant -tricks, eloquence a skill whereby greatness of -soul becomes articulate; rhetoric delights, eloquence inspires. From these differences it follows that, though both rhetoric and eloquence are engendered by great occasions, rhetoric can, but eloquence cannot, be enjoyed later merely as a performance. lThe UnrelenJ;~g Struggle: War Speeches by the Right Hon. Wins/on S. Churchill, C.H., M,P., compiled by CHARLES EADE. Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, 1942, $3.75. 297 298 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUART,ERLY This vital connection between eloquence and its theme should be clearly understood. 'The theme can make simple words eloquent , whereas rhetoric, by its nature, cannot be simple. The Roman gladiatorial combats were stopped by St. Te1emachus, who rushed into the arena and cried: «Would you see blood? Behold Christ'sl" A similar power resides in those words of Si'r Ian Hamilton's Gallipoli despatch: "The Turks came on, calling upon the name of God. Our men stood to it." But, in the next place, we should not conclude that a noble event can of itself make eloquence , or any kind of good art. That is a blunder which has injured the drama and the film. Abraham Lincoln is a thoroughly undistinguished play that gained loud acclaim' from audiences innocent enough to transfer to it the merits and importance of the historical Amer.ican President and the actual Civil War. Recent eulogies of Mrs Miniver have a similar origin. Now, in the two noble examples of brief eloquence just quoted, the situation (to be sure) contributes immensely, yet the sentence is not flat or obvious: it has that divine simplicity by which leach word is obvious, but the combination of them is sublime. We should not be so artless as to think a speaker eloquent ,because we cheer him at the top of our voices: usually our delight means nothing more than a realization that he shares our emotion but has uttered it better than we can utter it for ourselves. The speeches before us contain no su~h supreme brevities as those two or' Gallipoli and the Romari arena; but instances of the other kind are naturally common. "I feel sure ' we have no need to fear the tempest. Let it roar, and let it rage. We shall come through."!! And again: "The only answer to defeat is victory."3 Mr Eade has done his work excellently. Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that the...