The Rhetoric of Geopolitical Fiction in Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech

Abstract

An examination of the power of words, of the realm shared by fiction, poetry and political discourse, brings us to one of the most important common points linking the language of literature and its rhetoric, on the one hand, and the rhetoric of political discourse on the other: the consistent use of figurative language to appeal to the feelings of audiences. Most people would think, whether rightly or wrongly, of politics as relatively impure and manipulative and of literary language as elevated and enlightening. The emphasis in this text, a reconsideration of Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain Speech,” is not on the evaluation of the quality of the literary and political discourses, but on the devices used in
the public space that heavily rely on what one usually calls fictional, literary, even poetical devices to create “extra-literary” effects.