At the end of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech William Faulkner laid out his thoughts on a writer’s purpose, stating that “the poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man; it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.” The same might be said of a good speech. What are we looking for when we inspect the great works of oratory and assess them for greatness? Are we judging their historical worth and encapsulation of the times? Or are we more concerned with their ability to inspire and uplift regardless of context?
The answer appears to be a combination of both. For a speech to have lasting power, we ask not only that it be suitably well-written (and delivered with the right panache, if audio or video exists), but that it also have some kind of impact on world events. Such demands can be clearly seen in popular anthologies like Speeches that changed the world, which contains “the moments that made history”. A good, truly landmark speech is one which can be said to have delivered a blow to the course of events simply through the power of the spoken word.
Of course, one point which can be debated is whether a speech’s impact lies primarily in its delivery, or in the words which are spoken. Abraham Lincoln’s acclaimed Gettysburg Address failed to set hearts alight when it was actually delivered, and now it is seen as the archetypal inspiring speech despite its mere 272 words. On the other hand, some speeches clearly have power even if the listener has no idea what the speaker is saying. No-one who has ever seen footage of Adolf Hitler’s performances can doubt the forcefulness of his exhortations, even if they don’t speak a word of German. Most lie in between, managing a blend of fervent audience participation (for example Obama’s “Yes we can!”, which took on a life of its own during the campaign) with heartfelt words appealing to our senses of justice and patriotism years later.
Justice is often the inspiration of lasting speeches, with an attraction beyond time and country. Most place their faith in the idea that, as Lincoln himself said in his Cooper Union address, “right makes might”, and leave the realities and details of their cause to the policymakers. Lyndon Johnson told the US Congress and his television audience in 1965 that “Our mission is…to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man”, just as Vyacheslav Molotov told the Russian people after the German invasion of 1941, “Ours is a righteous cause. The enemy shall be defeated. Victory will be ours.”
However, even if the details of accomplishing such lofty aims are usually left out of speeches, the means of achieving them are always the same – solidarity. The speech
has yet to be outdone as a method of inspiring multitudes simultaneously (helped, of course, by its broadcast on television or radio). As Jesse Jackson told the Democratic National Convention in 1984, “We have proven that we can survive without each other. But we have not proven that we can win and make progress without each other. We must come together.” Barack Obama echoed this during his speech at the same event twenty years later, reminding Democrats that “There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America”, and Margaret Thatcher ordered her party to “stand together and do our duty, and we shall not fail.”
These speeches have such power years later because they appeal to the future. While uplifting in their eloquence, they often frankly acknowledge the limits to what can be achieved, thus emphasising the necessity of working together. Bernard Baruch’s 1946 speech introducing the ‘Baruch Plan’ to regulate nuclear activity poetically recognised that “The light at the end of the tunnel is dim, but our path seems to go brighter as we actually begin our journey.” But the journey will not be easy; “We cannot yet light the way to the end.”
Despite the obstacles which lie ahead, all orators use the opportunity to link themselves with “history”, a word which embodies their feelings of righteousness and urgency all at once. Some powerful speeches are of course delivered at groundbreaking occasions, such as Jawaharlal Nehru’s image of India’s “tryst with destiny” on the eve of independence in August 1947. Nehru was certainly justified in declaring that “history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.” Yet others call on history as more of a rhetorical device, using it to bolster the strength of their words. Fidel Castro, finishing up his four-hour court defence in 1953, proclaimed “Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.”
But history itself is subjective, which explains the bias towards male English speakers in the ‘great speech’ rankings (and particularly American men). Women and those outside the English-speaking world have traditionally had fewer opportunities to deliver such defining speeches; and if they had, would they have even been recorded, let alone had such a lasting impact?
Now they face more insurmountable obstacles. Part of Obama’s appeal as a speaker lies in the timbre of his voice – a timbre that a woman can never possess. His Democratic primary opponent in 2008, Hillary Clinton, may have delivered some inspiring remarks in her career, but no-one would argue that she is a great orator. Her forte remains more intimate ‘town hall’ settings, and a Clinton nomination acceptance speech in a stadium like Obama’s in 2008 would have been unimaginable. Equally, it is difficult to envisage Obama’s speech having quite the same power in its foreign-language dubbed version.
Any modern speech must also recognise the characteristics of the YouTube era. It is no longer just the television soundbite which speakers have to take into account, but the fact that to have any kind of historical resilience their speech must survive being replayed, forwarded, extracted, melted down into mashups – and the same is true of a ‘bad’ speech. Was Sarah Palin’s resignation speech as Alaska governor in July 2009 really so awful? Or will we always remember it as such because of Sarah Palin’s colossal online profile, combined with the viral popularity of William Shatner’s poetic interpretation of it on The Tonight Show?
Most of all, we equate powerful speeches with powerful leaders, regardless if they survive in the historical imagination as ‘good’. Whether it is a time of great national joy or sorrow, the delivery of an inspiring speech can last far beyond the moment and cement a leader’s historical legacy. Through speechmaking, to paraphrase Jesse Jackson’s 1984 address once more, “Leadership can lift the boats stuck at the bottom.”