Color Version 60 Speeches You Should Read in Your Lifetime

Author: Lincoln, Wen Yiduo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: Thoughts and words become light and approachable, the power of culture and the color of pictures flow together, starting a pleasant colorful reading journey. Features of this book:
Essential Classics: The selected 60 speeches vary in form and style, demonstrating excellent ideological and artistic qualities, representing the highest achievements in both Chinese and foreign oratory.
Scientific Structure: Through auxiliary sections such as "Selection Reason," "Speaker Introduction," "Appreciation of Fine Literature," "Historical Background," "Speech Techniques," and "Speech Knowledge," the book analyzes masterpieces from multiple angles to enhance readers' comprehension.
Interactive Illustrations: Over 300 vivid illustrations interpret the works, creating a colorful, three-dimensional, and culturally enchanting reading space.
Diverse Inspiration: Stimulates rational thinking, improves speech skills, refines moral sentiments, and elevates personal taste. Immersed in classics, readers gain boundless insights.
Most of these gentlemen showed strong aversion to the characterizations of Shakespeare! Yet I cried out: Nature, nature! Nothing is more natural than Shakespeare's characters! And so, they came together to throttle my neck. Let go, let me speak! He competed with Prometheus, using his opponents as models, meticulously crafting his characters, endowing them with the greatness of giants—precisely why we fail to recognize them as our brothers—and then animated their lives with his intellect. His intellect shines through each character, revealing their kinship. How can our generation dare to judge nature? Where can we understand it? From childhood, what we feel within ourselves and observe in others—all is constrained and artificial. I often stand before Shakespeare, filled with shame, for sometimes, after a glance, I think, had I been in his place, I would have handled it differently! Then I realize how wretched I am, for Shakespeare depicts nature, while my creations are mere bubbles, inflated by the of the fantastical. Though I have not gone overboard, I must now conclude. What the great philosophers have said about the world also applies to Shakespeare; what we call evil is merely another face of good, indispensable to its existence, forming an integral whole—just as the tropics are hot, Lapland is cold, creating a temperate zone. Shakespeare takes us on a tour of the world; yet we, these pampered and uninitiated ones, cry out at every locust: Sir, it will eat us! Sirs, act! Awaken all pure souls from the so-called paradise of noble tastes, where they suffer from tedious ignorance, half-awake and half-asleep. Though their hearts are filled with passion, their bones lack courage. They are not yet weary of life to the point of death, nor so lazy as to do nothing, so they lie among the rosebay and laurel, leading their languid lives, wasting their time.
This speech was delivered by Goethe on October 4, 1771, at the Shakespeare Memorial Congress in Frankfurt, Germany, when he was only 22 years old. To read this passionate and eloquent work by the young man is almost to shame all who have passed and those who follow. Goethe's speech is entirely about poetry and Shakespeare, demonstrating an undeniable grasp of both his scholarship and aesthetic understanding—rare indeed. This speech weaves rational scholarship with emotional fervor, expressing Goethe's profound admiration and boundless love for Shakespeare. His expression is brimming with poetic richness, in fact, it is a perfect poem—a manifesto on the emerging philosophy of aesthetics and art. In extolling Shakespeare, Goethe praises his artistic achievements while, at the same time, using Shakespeare as a benchmark to critique the shallow art of French petty bourgeois tragedy or comedy. He seized this opportunity to turn the speech into an aesthetic battle, boldly declaring at the outset: "I believe our highest sentiment is: when fate seems to have led us to normal death, we still hope to live." Goethe had his purpose in saying this. He then affirmed the greatness of Shakespeare's life and creation, and the profound meaning of his works, using Shakespeare as a weapon to criticize the of a secular soul and its derivatives—"all French tragedies themselves became mere imitative, comical poems." And Goethe declared: "Nothing is more natural than Shakespeare's characters." Shouting, "Let go, let me speak," an era of intellectual and artistic struggle began.