The Words of Winston Churchill, a study that ranges over the course of a rich, controversial and remarkable career, is about the power and art of his language as a writer and speaker. Churchill used words as the greatest of poets and orators do, and did so in Parliament and for the people, Britain and the empire, in war and peace, facing the changes in the world, and resisting Hitler and the Nazis. Drawing on the traditions of poetics, rhetoric and textual commentary, the study concentrates on Churchill’s writing and is sensitive to texts and contexts and to the archive. A central matter is Churchill speaking in Parliament and the reception of his speeches there for over six decades, although his work as a writer and a speaker outside the House of Commons is also important. Churchill speaks to the House, the people, Britain, the Empire, the Commonwealth and the world and, in crisis, defends freedom and democracy.
Preface
Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Language and the Past as Prologue
- Speaking and Writing
- Rhetoric, Parliament, Marlborough and Randolph Churchill
- Speech on South Africa, 18 February 1901
- The First World War: Speeches, 7 August 1914 and 22 August 1916
- Speeches after the Great War and in the 1920s, 18 March 1919, 23 February 1920 and 22 January 1929
- Speech on India, 26 January 1931
- Churchill’s Speech on India on 26 January 1931 and the Response
- Speech, the European Situation, 23 March 1933
- Responses to Churchill’s Speech on the European Situation, 23 March 1933
- Epilogue
Index
Biography
Jonathan Locke Hart is chair professor, School of Translation Studies, Shandong University.
