DECLAMATION AND MEDITATION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 954, 22 October 1910, Page 9

DECLAMATION AND MEDITATION.

It,must' have occurred'.to many- who have sat I out a choir competition and noted.the extremely educative tendency of the remarks of the adjudicator, as ho compared tho : words of the song with the music to which it was set and the various interpretations of tho music by tho various choirs, -to ask whether a similar method might not bo applied to. tho benefit of. literature. Supposo, for oxamplo, that, instead of three or •four choirs in succession mounting tho platform to render! the same piece of music, an equal number of volunteer elocutionists rendered the same piece of poetry, it is evident -that, : ; given an umpire who was an expert in poetry, his opportunity of initiating his hearers into tho perception of what is truly poetic would bo such as a professor \vi.o merely reads a lecture, or a critic who merely writes an article, might envy. The hint is .merely thrown out and may bo !used gratis: by an English society- recently' , formed to' interest its'olf in • such things, but it may be suggested : that one of the earliest discoveries of the promoters of such an.undertaking would be that, while out of the great treasure house of English poetry they could bring forth in abundance thingc both i.old and new to suit their purpose, yet

the 'great bulk of thoi poetry of England so boars thd mark of the people's lack of the declamatory instinct, as to be unfitted for the uses of the reciter. It is oftener meditutive and adapted to soliloquy, or lyrical and adapted to singing, than rhetorical and adapted to declamation. It was written to bo read rather than spoken; its-rhythms address the mental rather than the physical ear, and in order to bring out all its effects vocally it would bo necessary to develop intonations which would upset , tlio staid and decorous habits of elocution and encroach upon the. province of. song.'.- No elocutionist, for example, would care to produce. upon tlio platform the bardic croon in which Tennyson, is said to have recitid his poems, yet thoso who heard him have testified tliat.it served his purpose as perhaps no other method of delivery could, and there was hot a turn of phrase, not a. shining epithet, and not a rhythm which it did not make- effective. The contrast in this ' respect between French poetry, and' English is complete, and, as Miss Betham Edwards has recently reminded us, the habit of recitation of poetry, is ' hi France moro popular in consequence. "We must rcaliso the fact,"-she says, "that in France poetry is appreciated by the ear rather than by. the' eyes. In. no other ■ country is the art of declamation so persistently, so adoringly cultivated. The reciter, as thd troubadour of, old, has'his status, his special calling. FThus, 1 at' rustic, weddings, after the long breakfast, each course being interspersed with a song from the guests, the professional, storyteller . or- declaimer. comes forward. Pieces;grave and,gay are given. Recitation is cultivated both as a domestic .accomplishment and a profession."— "Manchester Guardian." ~ .