The radio played some D-Day radio news clips the other day in remembrance of the anniversary. I was struck not so much by the violence, (which they downplayed by today's standards) but by the eloquence, including the relative sophistication of the vocabulary and of course the passion and heartbreak that said eloquence was able to communicate so clearly.

Is there a place for eloquence anymore? Was that part of Obama's magic? That he was able to tell such a good story? Or is there still a feeling among many people that eloquence is somehow suspect - an indication that the speaker is some sort of "East Coast Elite" and therefore unable to empathize with the travails of Johnny Lunchbucket?

I do not mean to confuse overblown generalities or turgid prose with eloquence - there is a very simple beauty to statements such as "the data shows ......",

But there is a much more obvious (and terrible) beauty to the newscasts from D-day. They inspired almost a prurient desire to keep listening. (at least in me.)

Do any of you find enough eloquence in your lives? Is it welcome there? Is it just for the few of us that read or is the storyteller's magic still potent? And if so how can they world be made a better place using this?

Just wondering,

Audrey

The last President who was "clasically" eloquent was John Kennedy, and that was mostly Ted Sorenson's doing. Obama's speech suggests to me "law professor" mixed with the practiced cadences of the old black preachers. I think it works very well. Other than the black church, there is little eloquence (of the spoken variety) remaining in the U.S. today.

To find eloquent contemporary English speakers, you need to look to Great Britain, where the tradition is still alive.

Bill says, "You can't have eloquence if they won't let it be published."

Yes, that is my point. Is it because there is truly no longer a demand for it? Or because that is what the marketing department thinks, but they may be wrong? In fact, is it still be capable of touching the hearts of enough of us to bring it out of the shadows?

Audrey

I teach English to accelerated eighth graders as well as to college freshman. Let's put aside the freshman for awhile, as my journal topic on "What is your all time favorite book and why?" was met with blank stares and a request to be able to write about their favorite movies instead.

The brighter than most eighth graders mostly read, or they wouldn't be in the program I teach. Some of them get eloquence. I have given some of them Maya Angelou's essays (she does eloquence well, I think). Some like poetry, many do. For the most part, though, forget classics--even children's classics. Those who liked Huckleberry Finn were a very small majority, and my son is included, and I wouldn't put it past him to be sucking up to me. We had to take Lost Horizons out of the curriculum because so many of the kids didn't get it. They do like To Kill a Mockingbird, and subversive that I am, I have had Tunnel in the Sky on my summer reading list for the past ten years. I tried Citizen of the Galaxy, but too many just couldn't grok it in all fullness. Ditto on Starman Jones

Eloquence is old school. Ditto advanced vocabulary and books that make students work to get them. They'll read Harry Potter (well, so will I!) They'll read Midnight (sorry; can't do it), some will read the more thought-provoking books I suggest, but for the most part, no.

My kids did not seem to really learn to appreciate eloquence until they were at least in high school - I was mainly referring to adults. The oldest did not really speak with eloquence until he has over 20, at least to me. I see very very few eloquent (or even pithy) snippets in popular media, yet what started this thread was a newscast broadcast to the general public in the 40's.

I actually do not see a lot of popular media actually, and it is possible that it is there and I just do not see it.


Thanks,

Audrey

He had a better publisher for MNS.

I've been thinking about this issue of eloquence, and a few things sprung to mind in terms of the American experience.

1) We've had a culture growing since the 1940s that is based on the smart-aleck reply, which prides itself on puncturing pomposity -- think the Marx Brothers, and those who followed in their footsteps. Unfortunately, eloquence is often associated with authority (or used to be, when public speaking was an art), and so, I think "plain-speaking" became a way to avoid being made fun of....

2) Hemingway's influence on literary style may be in play here -- while he could be quite eloquent, the move to shorter, simpler sentence construction makes it more difficult for eloquence to emerge.

3) TV does not like eloquence. It's too hard to produce that on a regular basis...and radio already began the move away from that. Repetition trained an audience to neither expect it or appreciate it. Also, the whole shift from a verbal culture to a visual culture undercuts eloquence.

4) Thousands of writing teachers attacking purple prose may also have undercut eloquence -- it can be hard to distinguish between the two when the culture has a tin ear.

5) We stopped requiring that elementary school kids memorize poetry in reams -- to her dying day, my grandmother could recite a whole book of Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha"...without poetry, there is little chance for eloquence. Ditto when we stopped making children memorize passages from the King James Bible, which used to be the main text to teach reading.

Thoughts?

Robert, your example of Hemingway is one that I agree with. His influence on the literary arts especially is underappreciated. Since Hemingway proved that important literary works did not need to be built on inflated prose, his style became ascendant. Hemingway vs. Faulkner is an classic comparison. I admit I prefer Faulkner overall, which is probably why I don't mind when Heinlein gets "wordy," but Hemingway's style is dominant, though not as eloquent.