Читать книгу Saviour of the Nation - Brian Hodgkinson - Страница 7

Winston Churchill was the greatest Englishman of the twentieth century, and perhaps the greatest of all time.* His life was immensely rich and varied, for he excelled in the fields of politics, war, statesmanship and literature. Yet his crowning achievement was, without question, his leadership of Britain and the British Empire and Commonwealth during the Second World War. Even within that, his supreme qualities of courage, resolution and inspiring oratory were concentrated in the period from the outbreak of war in 1939 until the entry of the USA into the war in December 1941. Hence any literary work that tries to capture the essence of the man needs to focus likewise on this relatively short period when Britain fought for its survival against Nazi Germany. Especially is this so when the literary form is narrative poetry, where facts and historical detail are secondary to emotional intensity. As far as possible, I have adhered to recorded history within the limitations of the principal sources used and my own recollection of wider reading over many years. However, the selection of facts has been influenced by the overall demand for dramatic impact.

In particular the direct speeches made by Churchill in the poem are no more than paraphrases with a few words taken from what he actually said. This is necessitated by the need to avoid actual quotation, but especially by the demands of conciseness and metre. Personally I do not believe that Churchill himself would have objected to any attempt, however inadequate, to portray him as an epic hero.

* In 2002 he was named as the greatest Briton of all time in a nation-wide poll conducted by the BBC, attracting more than a million votes.