http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_shall_fight_on_the_beaches

     The second of Churchill's three major wartime speeches, he warns of a potential invasion by Nazi Germany, while retaining the resolute character embodied by his previous address. I chose this particular work because a particular admiration I have for Churchill's deftness of speech and also his written work - as he is the only British PM to ever receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

First Wiki Edit: 

NEW SECTION ON RHETORIC

Unlike the Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat speech or the This Was Their Finest Hour speech, Churchill's June 6 speech in the House of Commons was not a live radio broadcast. Rather, the speech was subsequently dictated by a voice actor following that evening's BBC news broadcast.^[1] A maestro of metaphor, Churchill leaned quite heavily upon this rhetorical strategy in his wartime speeches, citing its double-edged capacity to both "...[appeal] to the everyday knowledge of the hearer and"..."lead to conviction rather than to proof."^[2][3]

Privately addressing the house, "...which, being small, favored conversation, point and thrust, extemporary controversy rather than long set speeches", compelled Churchill to modify his customary rhetoric to suit the circumstances.^[4] The corpus is constructed from a slow buildup of plainly reported facts, which spare little of the unspeakable details from the retreat from Dunkirk:

Our losses in material are enormous. We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the opening days of the battle of 21st March, 1918, but we have lost nearly as many guns - nearly one thousand - and all our transport, all the armored vehicles that were with the Army in the north.^[5]

Though his delivery of the losses is frank, pathos is injected through scattered commendations of valor to British, French, and Belgian troops:

These young men, going forth each morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that 'every morn brought forth a noble chance, and ever chance brought forth a noble knight,' deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and continue to be ready to give life and all for their native land.^[6]

Summoning the archaic rhetoric of Tennyson, Churchill's tendency towards climactic morale building rather than explicit justification is in full view. After abstaining from grand metaphor throughout the exhortation, Churchill unleashes his signature rhetorical style at the opening of the peroration:

We shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.^[7]

Linking the struggle of war to a storm, while simultaneously personifying Nazi Germany as 'the menace of tyranny', Churchill draws on the emotion of the audience. Following this metaphor, the famous anaphoric lines "we shall" echo the durability of resolve he wishes to instill among his countrymen. Specifically, the repetitive use of 'we' has been praised as having "...submerged the leader in his people and engaged the collective spirit in its fight against a crazed nation governed by men rather than laws."^[8]

Rationale: There was already a large amount of background information on the We Shall Fight on the Beaches speech, so I wanted to add rhetorical analysis of the speech. There was very analysis conducted on this speech in peer-reviewed sources relative to Churchill's other wartime oratory so the majority of the new data is from research conducted on Churchill's general rhetoric and how it appeared in this speech. Furthermore, the fact that this speech was not broadcasted live was my chosen entry point into this particular piece as it allowed me to contrast his customary stylings to the rhetoric used in this specific instance.

Final Edit

NEW SECTION ON RHETORIC

Unlike the Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat speech or the This Was Their Finest Hour speech, Churchill's June 6 speech in the House of Commons was not a live radio broadcast. Rather, the speech was subsequently dictated by a voice actor following that evening's BBC news broadcast.^[9] A maestro of metaphor, Churchill leaned quite heavily upon this rhetorical strategy in his wartime speeches, often "...telling a story in which the actions of Hitler and Germany [were] represented as forces of evil in contrast to those of Britain and its allies...as forces of good".^[10] However, Churchill was quick to recognize metaphor's double-edged capacity to both "...[appeal] to the everyday knowledge of the hearer and...lead to conviction rather than to proof".^[11]

Privately addressing the house, "...which, being small, favored conversation, point and thrust, extemporary controversy rather than long set speeches", compelled Churchill to modify his customary rhetoric to suit the circumstances.^[12] The corpus is constructed from a slow buildup of plainly reported facts, which spare little of the unspeakable details from the retreat from Dunkirk:

Our losses in material are enormous. We have perhaps lost one-third of the men we lost in the opening days of the battle of 21st March, 1918, but we have lost nearly as many guns - nearly one thousand - and all our transport, all the armored vehicles that were with the Army in the north.^[13]

Though his delivery of the losses is frank, pathos is injected through scattered commendations of valor to British, French, and Belgian troops:

These young men, going forth each morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for, holding in their hands these instruments of colossal and shattering power, of whom it may be said that 'every morn brought forth a noble chance, and ever chance brought forth a noble knight,' deserve our gratitude, as do all the brave men who, in so many ways and on so many occasions, are ready, and continue to be ready to give life and all for their native land.^[14]

Summoning the archaic rhetoric of Tennyson, Churchill's tendency towards climactic morale building rather than explicit justification is in full view. After abstaining from grand metaphor throughout the exhortation, Churchill unleashes his signature rhetorical style at the opening of the peroration:

We shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.^[15]

Linking the struggle of war to a storm, while simultaneously personifying Nazi Germany as 'the menace of tyranny', Churchill draws on the emotion of the audience. Following this metaphor, the famous anaphoric lines "we shall" echo the durability of resolve he wishes to instill among his countrymen. Specifically, the repetitive use of 'we' has been praised as having "...submerged the leader in his people and engaged the collective spirit in its fight against a crazed nation governed by men rather than laws."^[16]

Changes:

I split the sentence with two footnotes into two separate sentences, and added a quote from the text instead of merely citing a rephrasing of information. I decided to keep the language and will await responses to its 'neutrality' from other editors.