Transcript Document
HIST1000 History for Today (by Fred Cheung) Learning History via Speeches Main Reference: Safire, William, ed. Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History. Revised and Extended Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004. • I. Memorials and Patriotic Speeches • *Pericles Extols the Glory that is Greece at the Funeral of its Fallen Sons (pp. 31-36) • Pericles was an hypnotized orator, a great general, a practical politician, an idealistic democrat and a stern imperialist. • “The purpose of this speech was to use the occasion of a eulogy for the fallen to examine the cause for which they fell.” (p. 42) • “And this our form, as committed not to the few but to the whole body of the people, is called a democracy.” (p. 42) • “There is visible in the same persons an attention to their own private concerns and those of the public” (p. 443) • “I saw what the polis might do for her citizens, and what the citizens might do for their polis.” (cf. President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Speech in January 1961: “Ask not what the country can do for you, ask what you can do for the country”) • II. War and Revolution Speeches • *Pope Urban II Launches the First Crusade (pp. 83-84) • “Dieu li volt” [“God wills it!”] (p. 94) • *Hitler Declares Germany’s Intentions (pp. 127-133) • *Winston Churchill Braces Britons to their Task (pp. 134136) • III. Tributes and Eulogies • *George Bernard Shaw Salutes his Friend Albert Einstein (pp. 206-210) • *Senator Robert F. Kennedy Speaks after the Assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (pp. 214-216) • IV. Debates and Argumentation • *Cicero Rails against Catiline and his Conspiracies (pp. 241-247) • *Candidates Nixon and Kennedy Meet in the First Televised Presidential Debate (pp. 301-310) • V. Trials • *Martin Luther Addresses the Diet of Worms (pp. 324-327) • “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” (p. 346) • I. Inspirational Speeches • “Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Ennobles the Civil Rights Movement at the Lincoln Memorial” (pp. 560-565) • “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal. •… • I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” (p. 564) • VII. Political Speeches • *President John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural, Takes up the Torch for a New Generation (pp. 891-894) • (“ Ask not what your country can do for you --ask what you can do for your country.” • (Cf. Pericles in ancient Athens, Greece, “I saw what the polis can do for her citizens, and what the citizens can do for their polis.”) • The use of antithesis: • “Let us never negotiate out of fear, • But let us never fear to negotiate.” • The use of parallelism: • “United, there is little we cannot do; • Divided, there is little we can do.” • (Cf. “United we stand, divided we fall”) • Edward Kennedy’s Eulogy to Senator Robert Kennedy • Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Mr. President: • On behalf of Mrs. Kennedy, her children, the parents and sisters of Robert Kennedy, I want to express what we feel to those who mourn with us today in this Cathedral and around the world. • We loved him as a brother, and as a father, and as a son. From his parents, and from his older brothers and sisters -Joe and Kathleen and Jack -- he received an inspiration which he passed on to all of us. He gave us strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and sharing in time of happiness. He will always be by our side. • Love is not an easy feeling to put into words. Nor is loyalty, or trust, or joy. But he was all of these. He loved life completely and he lived it intensely. • That is the way he lived. That is what he leaves us. • My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. • Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. • As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: • "Some men see things as they are and say why. • I dream things that never were and say why not."