January 24 will mark the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s death, the unlikely recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. In part, his laureateship was in commemoration of his historical writing, but more striking is the acknowledgement of his “brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values”. Despite the obvious sentimentality driving this particular award, it still attests to the importance of political speaking in the Western world.

Oratory has classically been an art form valued above the written word. Whether in the form of rousing nationalistic speeches or the tradition of oral folklore, humankind has persistently been preoccupied with its pre-linguistic past. The origin of US literature, for example, arises from the imitation of such oratory genres, with most of foundation author Ralph Waldo Emerson’s formative essays on the burgeoning American subject derived from a series of speeches given in the newly formed American Republic. In an age where politicians (and even writers) are tweeting instead of public speaking, has the the once mighty oratory fallen by the wayside?

This lack of prowess in public speaking is now widespread. Churchill’s oratory is now mentioned in the same breath as Cicero and Abraham Lincoln, such was his ability to unite a nation and more against adversity. Remembering his death means remembering that fading art as well.