She famously tells her troops: ‘I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too’. But she had learned rhetoric as a young princess, and this training served her well when she wrote and delivered this speech (she was also a fairly accomplished poet). When she gave this speech, Elizabeth was in her mid-fifties and her youthful beauty had faded. ![]() On 9 August 1588, Elizabeth addressed the land forces which had been mobilised at the port of Tilbury in Essex, in preparation for the expected invasion of England by the Spanish Armada. Queen Elizabeth I’s speech to the troops at Tilbury is among the most famous and iconic speeches in English history. Queen Elizabeth I, ‘ The Heart and Stomach of a King’ (1588). The speech was considered such a fine example of Roman rhetoric that it was a favourite in classrooms for centuries after, as Brian MacArthur notes in The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches. At the Temple of Jupiter in Rome, Cicero addressed the crowd, but specifically directed his comments towards Lucius Catiline, who was accused of plotting a conspiracy to set fire to the capital and stage and insurrection. Of all of the great classical orators, perhaps the greatest of all was the Roman statesman, philosopher, and speechmaker, Cicero (whose name literally means ‘chickpea’). Marcus Tullius Cicero, ‘ Among Us You Can Dwell No Longer’ (63 BC). The line about having nothing to fear except fear itself was, in fact, only added into the speech the day before the inauguration took place, but it ensured that the speech went down in history. Roosevelt’s famous line in the speech, which offered hope to millions of Americans dealing with unemployment and poverty, was probably inspired by a line from Henry David Thoreau, a copy of whose writings FDR had been gifted shortly before his inauguration. Roosevelt was elected only a few years after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 which ushered in the Great Depression. This is the title by which Roosevelt’s speech at his inauguration in 1933 has commonly become known, and it has attained the status of a proverb. But it would be another ten years, in 1928 – the year of Pankhurst’s death – before the voting age for women was equal to that for men (21 years).įranklin Roosevelt, ‘ The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself’ (1933). This speech was given at the Portman Rooms in London in 1908 ten years later, towards the end of the First World War, women over 30 were finally given the vote. She also shows how ‘man-made’ the laws of England are, when they are biased in favour of men to the detriment of women’s rights. ![]() Her emphasis in this speech is on the unhappy lot most women could face, in marriage and in motherhood. After she realised that Asquith’s Liberal government were unlikely to grand women the vote, the Women’s Social and Political Union, founded by Pankhurst with her daughter Christabel, turned to more militant tactics to shift public and parliamentary opinion. Pankhurst (1858-1928) was the leader of the British suffragettes, campaigning – and protesting – for votes for women. But good writing should also remind readers what humankind is capable of.Įmmeline Pankhurst, ‘ The Plight of Women’ (1908). ![]() He also emphasises that being a writer is hard work, and involves understanding human nature in all its complexity. In his speech, Faulkner makes his famous statement about the ‘duty’ of writers: that they should write about ‘the human heart in conflict with itself’, as well as emotions and themes such as compassion, sacrifice, courage, and hope. This is the title sometimes given to one of the most memorable Nobel Prize acceptance speeches: the American novelist William Faulkner’s acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature at Stockholm in 1950.
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