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Thanks to Anke Paraphrase of Presentation Speech ... from the Oxford University Website An Orator very seldom has the chance to present a Queen for a degree, and so it is bound to be especially delightful when he can present to the Encaenia gathering two Queens at once. We have seen Dame Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth and as Queen Victoria, both of whom she portrayed with such skill that we thought we were seeing those monarchs themselves, familiar as they are to us all from our earliest childhood. Nor has she limited herself to British royalty. She has appeared as Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt and the terror of Rome, and as Titania, the Queen of the fairies: the former all sensuality, the latter all grace. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that she is always regal. I shall not dwell on the fact that her very first appearance before an audience was as a snail; but in Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth she was the bawd Mistress Quickly, while in Tea with Mussolini she acted Arabella, a well-meaning but eccentric painter, whom she portrayed so vividly that every Englishman recognised an aunt or a cousin of his own. `As time goes by' she has become a familiar figure in our homes, living through the experiences of a married woman in ordinary life. She might claim, with the poet Juvenal: My art embraces people's hopes and fears, Their whole routine, its laughter and its tears. This is what we mean by holding up a mirror to life: the ability to bring to vivid reality the greatest works, whether of a light or of a serious cast. There is a familiar saying, that life was a comedy to Democritus, a tragedy to Heraclitus; they were philosophers, but Dame Judi shows a truer wisdom, in her ability to manage both so well. She shows no less skill as an author, having written a book which, with her usual modesty, she called Shakespeare for Dummies; and she also is an experienced and successful director. I present an ornament of the stage, a favourite of the public, equally powerful in evoking tears and laughter, Dame Judi Dench, DBE, for admission to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters. Admission by the Chancellor Great practitioner of the histrionic art, you have practised your skill with such mastery that we love to be deceived, and in that deception gain true understanding about life and the art of living. Acting on my own authority and on that of the University as a whole, I admit you to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.
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