Comments on: On Reading Dennis Glover’s “The art of great speeches: and why we remember them”

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:12:53 +0000

Indeed MLK is one of my all-time favourites, as is Lincoln. I have re-read the letter from Birmingham Jail as much as anything else, and the Gettysburg address was the first (and almost the last, prayers excepted!) thing I ever learnt by heart.

I never ‘got’ the Kennedys, especially not John. He always just seemed like a hypocrite to me – sacrifice for thee but not I.

By: Don Arthur

Don Arthur — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:27:28 +0000

How about Cassablanca with Ronald Reagan instead of Ingrid Bergman.

By: Yobbo

Yobbo — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:31:23 +0000

Mr Gorbachev, tear down this horrible post.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:43:55 +0000

Like Casablanca with Ronald Reagan in the lead instead of Humphrey Bogart!

By: Sophia

Sophia — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 08:25:57 +0000

Kennedy said “I am a jam donut”

By: Don Arthur

Don Arthur — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 07:39:45 +0000

I think you’re right to say that great rhetoric moves its audience:

because of the utter heartfeltness of its sentiments and the eloquent way in which the speaker embodies his or her own character and convictions. It involves a kind of orgasmic sense of oneness between the speaker and the listener – when they somehow become one.

The greatness isn’t in the speech itself, it’s the combination of the words, the speaker and the audience.

A speech that sounds sincere and powerful coming from one speaker will sound phony and limp coming from another. Without necessarily being conscious of it, we interpret a speaker’s words through what we know about them as a person.

I can imagine a politician pledging allegiance to everything I believe in and my being utterly repulsed. And I can imagine another saying things I disagree with, and coming away impressed.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:46:00 +0000

Not true.

By: Mr. Eyesore

Mr. Eyesore — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:38:44 +0000

The muted audience response to Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” is because many in the audience would have heard it as “I am a processed-meat product”. Still, it could have been worse – if that speech had been made in Frankfurt or Hamburg for example.