O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best; Try to read "To Celia” without jingle: TO CELIA Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I'll not ask for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath But thou thereon didst only breathe And sent'st it back to me; Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself but thee! BEN JONSON. Still other interpreters read as if everything were purely casual, as if nothing in particular mattered, and as if the reader would be disgraced if he showed any enthusiasm or excitement. They are in the main dull, tame, and quite sapped out. The following passage can be read very casually, but it can also be read with a tremendous glow: HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge- The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, BROWNING. Then there is what has been called the typewriter or machine gun style of interpretation, every syllable pronounced with about the same duration as every other syllable. If-it-were-writ-ten-it-would-look-ap-prox-im-ately-likethis. It is one of the deadliest offences committed by the grade-school type of reader. In fact, many grade school teachers compel their youngsters to read that way to make sure that the little sinners get in ev-er-y-word-and-ev-er-ysyl-la-ble. It comes close to being the finest flower of the grade-school method of reading; it is without sense, sentiment, or understanding for the listener. It is one of the surest marks of the speech sin known as "indirectness." A good many public speakers use it too, because their grade-school teachers made them do it when they were young and impressionable. Read the following passage as if it were perfectly good sense for sensible people, with a broken rhythm and rate. Many there be who will read this passage in-the-style-of-atype-writer. Some doubt the courage of the Negro. Go to Hayti and stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best soldiers France ever had, and ask them what they think of the Negro's sword. And if that does not satisfy you, go to France, to the splendid mausoleum of the Counts of Rochambeau, and to the eight thousand graves of Frenchmen who skulked home under the English flag, and ask them. And if that does not satisfy you, come home; and if it had been October, 1859, you might have come by way of quaking Virginia, and asked her what she thought of Negro courage. WENDELL PHILLIPS. In interpretation the sin of poor bodily adjustment can be committed also. Some people seem to have the idea that when they are reading what somebody else has written, they can let everything go to sleep but their eyes and their tongues. This is wrong. Good interpretation is just as hard work as any other kind of public speaking. Sometimes when the interpreter compels himself to stand still, because of that very compulsion itself ne is working harder than if he were moving around. The very necessity for standing still is sometimes hard work. Re with the whole body, is a good rule, even though the audannot see the whole body at work. The following stanza tan hardly be read with an inert body, that is, with relaxed muscles. When the sky is gettin' mellow, and the musty, damp earth smell Is mountin' up like whiskey in your brain; When you feel that things are growin', and you watch the gutters swell With the heavy snow of winter that is melting once again: Do ye smell your old campfire? Do ye feel the outland rain? Do ye hear the call o' camps that you have known? If ye do, ye'd best obey it, for you'll fight with it in vain— For it's all out-doors a-callin' to its own. RALPH PERRY: The Ballade of All Out-Doors.1 There are other forms of poor interpretation, easily found on our public platforms and in our drawing rooms and at Sunday school, but these are the best known kinds. Other errors will be hinted at in the latter part of the book under the subject of "The Technique of Expression." 1 By permission of The Stratford Company, Boston. INTERPRETATION INVOLVES NEW EXPERIENCE Many readers can never be good interpreters because they assume that everything they read aloud should be read about the way they talk every day, or the way they read in the grades. Now it so happens that most of the literature we are moved to interpret to others is just exactly the opposite of commonplace. If it is commonplace we have no urge to exhibit it to somebody else. When we find something that we want to read and reveal to others, almost unanimously it is material that is new, unique, exciting, even overpowering. More than this it is in a language rarely the same as the language we use every day. Only in special cases do we interpret anything written just the way we talk. in-/ . For every one of our lyric poems, Sñort stories, dramas, all the kinds of material that we ever care to interpret, deals with sentiments that are quite our every-day experiences, expressed in language tid I are never caught using. Nobody ever talked the way S..akespeare's characters do; nobody ever strings off narratives like O. Henry's stories; and beautiful descriptions or wise philosophisings on paper are always vastly more concise and compact than the impromptu speech of any known human being. The people who can just talk off good literature are so rare as to be classed among the geniuses. As a consequence literature good enough to interpret is quite out of the run of the kind used by us every-day folk; and when we start interpreting it to others we have to get quite out of our every-day casualness. As a consequence the art of interpretation is a broad study in how to seem as if we were using our regular ideals, sentiments, and language, at the very time that we are using ideas and sentiments and language quite foreign to all our habits of speech. The following passages are in a language and a mood quite different from the language and mood of casual chat. Read these in a way to match the words used and the spirit presented: THEY SLEEP SO QUIETLY 2 They sleep so quietly, those English dead, But when the hawthorn spills her petals down, They will lie dreaming in the ancient tombs VIRGINIA L. TUNSTALL. Oh, when shall the St. Louis of the nations rise, and in the spirit of true greatness, proclaim that henceforward forever the great trial by battle shall cease, that war shall be abolished throughout the commonwealth of civilization, that a spectacle so degrading shall never be allowed again to take place, and that it is the duty of nations, involving the highest and wisest policy, to establish love between each other, and, in all respects, at all times, with all persons, whether their own people or the people of other lands, to be governed by the sacred law of right, as between man and man. 3 GO LIGHTLY, WIND CHARLES SUMNER. Go lightly here, for in your going, Go swiftly like clean waters flowing Beyond your reach, and beyond the thunder, 2 By permission of The Lyric. 3 From R. H. L. Linebook, 1926. By permission of Richard Henry Little. |