i f. 
 
 ■.ip-4 "4* 
 
 j,.«ii4it*: J.' : : J. j .; ■J'- .' ■ ! ■ w i 
 
 '■SBBbflnBTn- - ! ■ ■ ; ■ "^^ ■ j* ■ >•£ ■ 
 
 ?!*ff 
 
 
 
 il ^ . 
 ■ p- ■■ ■ 
 
 tr\ 
 
 
 IB ■*' J -=■ -I ' : -1 ; » . . ■ V •'. ,1 
 
 
 U-)^ 
 
 S^lt.;. 
 
 I - . f ' . 
 
 Ml - : !^ ?, '1 . ■ :-■ -1 >i ^' ■ S'J- ; .-- !!' ■: 
 
 if|™Y,- : ;■: . ■;. r ■:■'■'■ .: 
 liS:, r' ' ' - ■ '-i- ■"- 'i ■ ■ ■ . ■ 
 
 ^ . ■ 
 
 
 Ml 
 
 . , '. ? 
 
 c;- « ^t5f«^'*' j!-.= i ■■?■ - 
 
 
 ■ E 
 
 
 '■-.ir «; 
 
 «x "l" 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 Mrs. R. 3. Williams 
 
B Cornell University 
 S Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027197700 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PN 4145.B62 
 
 Interpretive forms of literature. 
 
 3 1924 027 197 700 
 
 INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
Copyright^ igoj 
 By Bmily M. Bishop 
 
 Printed by THE Nyvall Press 
 242-244 West 41st Street, New York 
 
Interpretative Forms 
 
 of 
 
 Literature 
 
 
 
 
 
 BY 
 
 EMILY M. BISHOP 
 
 Author of 
 "Health and Self-Expression" 
 
 
 
 
 
 INKW YORK 
 
 1903 
 
" The artist has done nothing till he has 
 concealed himself. * * * * /a the reading 
 of a great poem, in the bearing of a 
 noble oration, it is the subject of the 
 writer and not his skill, — his passion, not 
 his power, on which our minds are 6xed. 
 We see as he sees, but we see not him. 
 We become part of him, feel with him. 
 Judge, behold with him; but we think of 
 him as little as of ourselves. Do we think 
 of Mschylas while we wait on the silence 
 of Cassandra, or of Shakespeare, while 
 we listen to the wailing of Lear ? Not so. 
 The power of the masters is shown by 
 their self-annihilation. It is commensu- 
 rate with the degree in which they them- 
 selves appear not in their work." 
 
 — RUSKIN. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introductory - -' 9 
 
 G>mmon Errors in Rendering 13 
 
 Right Approach to Literature - 30 
 
 Principles of Classification 36 
 
 Interpretative Forms Classified - - 43 
 
 The Interpreter's Relation 45 
 
 Gestures and Determining Elements in Rendition 54 
 
 Treatment of Interpretative Forms 82 
 
 Direct Personal Address 85 
 
 Impersonal Address - 108 
 
 Contemplative Address 120 
 
 Plain Narrative 125 
 
 Dramatic Narrative 130 
 
 Soliloquy - 152 
 
 Narrative Monologue 157 
 
 Dramatic Monologue 166 
 
 Character Monologue - - 176 
 
 Drama - - 177 
 
 Reading in Public Schools - 183 
 
 Making an Orator. By Stephen Crane, From "Whilomville 
 
 Stories," by permission of Harper Bros. Copyright, J900, by 
 
 Harper Bros. - - . . . - . 192 
 
Introductory 
 
 HILE the title "Interpretative Forms' 
 of Literature" is an expression some- 
 what uncommon, it seems to express 
 most definitely the purpose of this, 
 book, which is to present a classifica- 
 tion of the various forms of literature 
 according to their dramatic signifi- 
 cance in oral interpretation. 
 
 The dictionary defines interpretation as ' 'his- 
 trionic or artistic representation, especially with 
 reference to the conception or idea conveyed: 
 rendering," and interpretative as "designed or 
 fitted to interest." By interpretative forms of 
 literature, as here used, are meant those forms 
 that hy virtue of their inherent form,, more or less 
 directly determine the general manner in which 
 any piece of literature should be treated in oral 
 gxpression if the spirit of the literature, and not 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB PORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 the personality of the interpreter, is to be pre- 
 sented. 
 
 So far as the writer knows, no classification of 
 literature based upon the different forms it 
 presents when studied with a view to its legiti- 
 mate treatment in oral interpretation, has before 
 been made and put into usable shape in print. 
 Classification here, as elsewhere, should lead to 
 simplification in mastering one's subject, and to 
 self-protection from the danger of handling 
 one's material in a fundamentally wrong manner 
 as is so frequently done by those — teachers, 
 speakers, readers — who have to deal with the 
 oral interpretation of literature. 
 
 The general interpretative classifications here- 
 in presented are: I. Direct Personal Address, 
 II. Impersonal Address, III. Exalted Address, 
 IV. Contemplative Address, V. Plain Narrative, 
 VI. Dramatic Narrative, VII. Soliloquy, 
 VIII. Narrative Monologue, IX. Dramatic 
 Monologue, X. Character Monologue, XI. Trag- 
 edy, XII. Comedy, XIII. Melodrama, 
 XIV. Farce, and XV. Burlesque. 
 
 In recent books that present selections from 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 literature especially intended for oral interpreta- 
 tion are to be found only such classifications as, 
 "Prose: Dramatic Narrative, Pathetic, Humor- 
 ous, Humorous Dialect; Poetry: Dramatic 
 Narrative, Pathetic, Humorous, Humorous Dia- 
 lect, Lyric and the Drama."* 
 
 Or, "Narrative and Colloquial Selections, Ora- 
 tions, Dramatic and Humorous Selections and 
 Poetry."** 
 
 Or, "Intellect — Eelative Thought Values, 
 Emotion — Aesthetic, Will — Purpose, Physique — 
 Psycho-physical Eesponse."*** 
 
 Clearly, none of these classifications, save that 
 of the drama and dramatic narrative, has aught 
 to do with the interpretative form of the litera- 
 ture that is presented for reading. Thus, the at- 
 tempt herein made to classify selections from lit- 
 erature according to the dramatic form that 
 they present to the interpreter is, in a sense, ex- 
 perimental. 
 
 *"Handbook of Best Readings," S. H. Clark. 
 **''A Modern Reader and Speaker," George Riddle. 
 ***"Psychological Development of Expression,'' Mary A. 
 Blood and Ida Morey Riley. 
 
 II 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITBRATURE 
 
 Doubtless, some interpreters of literature will 
 disagree with some of the classifications and with 
 the assignment of some of the illustrations given 
 under, the different heads. The writer will be 
 grateful for any suggestions that may lead to 
 greater exactness in these directions; all such 
 suggestions will be carefully considered before 
 the subject matter of this book is revised. 
 
COMMON ERRORS IN RENDERING 
 
 LEADING educator, in a lecture on 
 pedagogy, recently said that children 
 should be trained in their studies to 
 see mental images of whole problems 
 and situations ; that if their training 
 is neglected in this direction, their 
 tendency is to magnify some unim- 
 portant parts, not to see other parts and to mistake 
 parts for the whole — the result naturally being a 
 generally confused and inexact comprehension of 
 their studies. As an illustration of how children 
 untrained in making mental images of their 
 studies as wholes, fail to appreciate relative 
 values, the lecturer said that were such a prob- 
 lem given as : "At the Chicago stock yards, 20 
 cattle can be put into one car, how long would 
 
 13 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP UTBRATURB 
 
 it take to load 20 cars ? " many children would 
 immediately commence figuring. 
 
 It would seem, judging from their platform 
 work, as if not a few elocutionists, readers, 
 speakers, ministers, interpreters of literature, 
 under any name whatsoever, approach the litera- 
 ture they are to interpret in much the same man- 
 ner that children of unsynthetical minds approach 
 their studies. Figures to the child suggest ciph- 
 ering, so immediately he begins to cipher, regard- 
 less of the relation of said figures to the main 
 issue of the problem. Likewise, words, especi- 
 ally words descriptire of scenes, actions or emo- 
 tions, to the reader or speaker suggest doing some- 
 thing — ^vocally and gesturaUy — and forthwith he 
 begins to do ; to literally, in greater or less de- 
 gree, re-present whatever is named by the words, 
 regardless of the relation of the parts so named 
 to the motive or spirit of the whole piece of 
 literature. 
 
 If tears, moans, thunder, bird-notes or bugle 
 notes are mentioned, the voice takes on a repre- 
 sentative coloring, or possibly tries to imitate the 
 exa»t sound mentioned. If mention is made of 
 
 14 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 features of natural scenery, as mountains, clouds, 
 and running brooks, descriptive gestures are em- 
 ployed to show that mountains are topographic- 
 ally high, that clouds are skyward and are perhaps 
 "floating," and to show the motion of running 
 brooks. If directions are named, as east, west, 
 to the right or in front, descriptive gestures 
 definitely inform the audience where these well- 
 known points are located. If any personal action 
 is spoken of, as stooping, turning, rowing, hfting 
 an arm, drawing a sword, or drawing the hand 
 across the forehead, even knocking, or opening a 
 door, again descriptive gestures literalize the 
 action named. If emotions are suggested, 
 directly, as despair, anger, triumph, or, indirectly, 
 as"The poor man's heart was breaking," descrip- 
 tive gestures serve in the attempt outwardly to 
 present in definite, formal manner, that which is 
 wholly a matter of inner experience and f eeUng. 
 Everywhere descriptive gestures are freely used 
 to make vivid and as realistic as possible all 
 objects, scenes, actions and emotions suggested 
 by the words ; and this, whether such objects, 
 scenes, actions and emotions have any vital rela- 
 
 15 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 tion to the spirit of the literature in which they 
 occur, or are merely incidental to the main theme, 
 and should, therefore, be kept duly subordinate. 
 
 It is this failure to recognize the difference be- 
 tween the fundamentals and the "accidentals," 
 so to speak, of different kinds of literature, that 
 makes much of the work of public readers and, 
 though perhaps in a less degree, of pubUc speakers, 
 justly deserve the terms of opprobrium bestowed 
 upon it. People of refinement are prejudiced by 
 the untrue rendering to which this leads against 
 all that bears the name elocution. In their minds 
 elocution is something "affected," "ridiculous," 
 and "distasteful." 
 
 A few concrete illustrations observed in the 
 pulpit, on the platform and stage recently — all 
 within the past year — are here given in verifica- 
 tion of the foregoing statements regarding the 
 excessive use of descriptive gestures. Nor are 
 these exaggerated cases ; similar ones are to be 
 seen in the work of a large majority of readers 
 and speakers to-day. 
 
 (1) A prominent teacher of and lecturer on 
 literary interpretation, in a public talk, denounced 
 
 i6 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 the use of descriptive gestures in narrative. A 
 few minutes later, wishing to emphasize some 
 statement in his talk, he recited a poem about a 
 woman at the theatre. The interpretative form 
 of the poem is that of the dramatic monologue — 
 where one person, the speaker, alone is repre- 
 sented as talking. In order, apparently, to 
 make the relation between himself and the 
 audience more intimate and confidential, the 
 reader sat while reciting ; but instead of 
 following up this suggestion and telling the 
 audience directly and simply of the incident 
 that had occurred some time in the past — as one 
 would actually do under similar circumstances 
 in real life — the reader, by descriptive gestures 
 of the head and eyes, located the lady of the 
 story in a box — second tier, to the left — and to 
 that imaginary box instead of to the audience, he 
 addressed nearly all of his attention and words. 
 
 (2) An eminent divine in an expository pul- 
 pit service on a certain chapter of the Bible, de- 
 scriptively illustrated ' ' the coming and the going 
 of the wind " by walking back and forth in the 
 pulpit and swinging his arms; "the ebb and 
 
 17 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 flow of the sea " by vigorously pushing his arms 
 up and down in front of his body ; " a trembhng 
 old man going up into high places " by a stooping 
 of back and knees and a trembling of the arms, 
 and the lifting of one leg after the other several 
 times, to indicate mounting stairs — this for "the 
 high places." 
 
 (3) A young lady, a reader of considerable 
 prominence and of much promise, giving a dra- 
 matic narrative wherein a man is represented as 
 saying of his sweetheart : ' ' She daintily lifted 
 her skirt and swept from the room," actually 
 lifted her own dress and took two or three steps 
 as if leaving the platform. Had the reader in 
 this particular case been a man, the character 
 presented would not have been made to do such 
 an absurd thing as to burlesque his sweetheart's 
 manner of lifting her dress. 
 
 (4) Another young lady reading the lines: 
 
 ' ' And there she sat with her great brown eyes, 
 They wore a troubled look ; 
 And I read the history of her troubled life 
 As it were in an open book," 
 
 spread out her hands in front of her to represent 
 
 i8 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OP UTBRATVRB 
 
 the book and looked down as if reading then and 
 there. 
 
 (5) A popular actor seated alone on the stage 
 soliloquizing about imaginary children that might 
 be his in years to come, at the conclusion rose 
 from his seat, looked down on the floor as if the 
 children were really there in flesh and blood, 
 and with descriptive gestures waved them away, 
 as he said: "Vanish, children of my fancy." 
 
 (6) A teacher of elocution, conspicuous for 
 her public work in literary analysis, during a 
 dramatic recital read the words, "These two men 
 were by nature as far removed from each other as 
 the east from the west," and descriptively out- 
 stretched straight from the shoulder, an arm to 
 the right for the east and an arm to the left 
 for the west. 
 
 (7) A young man, a teacher of elocution in a 
 college and a graduate of one of the most popular 
 schools of expression in the country, reading a 
 dramatic narrative, told in the third person, past 
 tense, about a rowing contest, imitated — so far 
 as was in his power without actual oars and 
 water — the rowing of an old man, now faster,. 
 
 19 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 now "easier," as the words indicated during a 
 speech six lines in length. 
 
 The following are taken from illustrations 
 published in a magazine chiefly devoted to the 
 interests of readers and speakers. Accompanying 
 the lines cited, are pictures showing what the 
 bodily expression or gestures should be ; these 
 pictures the writer here briefly describes. 
 
 {a) " Vassal counts and princes follow where his pennon goes, 
 Long-descended lords whom the vulture knows, 
 On whose track the vulture swoops." ***** 
 
 Picture: A yoimg lady in historic costume 
 with weight on advanced forward foot, body 
 bent somewhat toward that foot, opposite arm 
 lifted high above the head with hand tensely 
 bent to indicate the act of swooping, disdainful 
 expression of the face. 
 
 {d) " My ladies loosed my golden chain." 
 
 Picture: Here one hand is raised to neck with 
 finger lightly touching the chain, head is turned 
 indifferently away from audience and droops over 
 shoulder, the better to exhibit said chain. 
 
TNTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 The above from Christina G. Eossetti's heroic 
 poem, "A Eoyal Princess." 
 
 (c) " And she stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, 
 And filled for him her small tin cup." 
 
 — Wkttiier's "Maud Muller." 
 
 Picture : A young lady stooping gracefully 
 toward the supposed spring, prettily lifting her 
 Greek drapery with one hand, extending the other 
 outward as if holding a tiii cup, and looking, not 
 •at the spring nor at the cup, but coquettishly up 
 at the definitely located Judge. 
 
 {d) "All that breathe 
 
 Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
 When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
 Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
 His favorite phantom." 
 
 Picture for the last phrase : A young lady 
 with weight lightly forward on an advanced 
 foot, body playfully twisted to one side, one arm 
 extended straight in front, the other raised, elbow 
 bent and fingers lightly resting on the forehead, 
 head tipped backward, expression of face — and 
 of the entire figure — joyous abandon. 
 
 («■) ' ' Wraps the drapery of his couch 
 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."' 
 
JNTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 Picture : A long flowing drapery wrapped ar- 
 tistically around the reader who seems to be simu- 
 lating the facial expression of either death or 
 sleep, in a very uplifted attitude of body. 
 
 The last two illustrations are from Bryant's 
 ^ ' Thanatopsis. " 
 
 Is it any wonder that an educator who loves 
 hterature should ironically suggest that some of 
 these would-be " interpreters" pantomime Kant's 
 ^' Critique of Pure Reason ?" 
 
 " Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed." 
 
 — Fehcia Hemans' "Bring Flowers," 
 
 An innocent little child, advertised as only six 
 years old, is here made the victim to such artifi- 
 cial — nay, pernicious — training as the following 
 picture suggests : 
 
 Picture : The child's head is thrown theatric- 
 sl\j back in an oblique direction with one hand 
 pressing against it near the temple, the other 
 hand clenched, arm thrown tensely back and out; 
 an agonized expression on the infantile face. 
 
 This little girl is made to pantomime flowers 
 " when they break forth in their glory," when 
 they "speak hope to the fainting heart," when 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 they are "nature's offering," and "carrying them 
 to the shrine," to "the captive's lonely cell," to 
 the "festal board," and "to die in the con- 
 queror's way." 
 
 " Be Thou my guide ; 
 Bid darkness turn to day." 
 
 —" My Faith Looks Up to Thee." 
 
 Another child victim, age five years. Here the 
 attempt is made to spectacularize the words 
 " Bid darkness." 
 
 Picture : The child's arms are lifted at unequal 
 heights, elbows bent, hands approach shoulders, 
 fingers of one hand are open as if " bidding," 
 startled expression on the baby face as if its own- 
 er might be afraid of the darkness she is bidding 
 "turn to day." 
 
 Another girl, a little older, is taught to follow 
 such directions as are quoted below in literalizing 
 the words in the ' 'Suwannee Eiver, " 
 
 "Far, far away.'' 
 
 "Eight foot forward, strong; right hand prone, 
 oblique ascending; left hand hanging at left side; 
 head right oblique; eyes looking far away." 
 
 23 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 Clearly, here, as with children who are un- 
 trained mentally to grasp the whole of a problem 
 or situation, there is lack of appreciation of rel- 
 ative values, hence unimportant details are made 
 conspicuously, sometimes ridiculously, prominent 
 at the expense of the main idea or dominant emo- 
 tion which is thus subordinated. 
 
 In aU the instances cited — except the first one — 
 certain words, taken by and for themselves, sug- 
 gested doing something, therefore, the reader or 
 speaker made, or the teacher caused the uncom- 
 prehending child to make, descriptive gestm-es 
 irrespective of their fideUty to nature or of their 
 relation to the spirit of the whole piece of litera- 
 ture. 
 
 Some of the foregoing illustrations are so un- 
 pardonably bad, so remote from any possible re- 
 lation to the Kterature that they are supposed 
 to illumine, that one would fain pass them by 
 without comment, " let the dead bury its dead," 
 were it not for the undeniable fact that the class 
 of work that they represent is not something 
 obsolete or even nearly so, but is very much ahve 
 and in evidence to-day. 
 
 24 
 
INTBRPRBT4TIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 To appreciate the full significance of these il- 
 lustrations, one must realize that they do not 
 represent merely the work of one certain teacher 
 having false standards of interpretation, but that 
 of several teachers, and that those teachers are 
 only a half dozen out of scores who are teaching 
 still other teachers — as well as thousands of; 
 students^equally false standards. 
 
 Nor is the evidence of this wrong primary at- 
 titude toward the Uterature they would interpret, 
 confined to the gestural and facial expression of 
 readers and speakers. Fully as much falseness 
 is present in their vocal expression, but it is not 
 so easy to point out definitely in illustration.. 
 Inflection, force, pitch, time, emphasis, tone-color,, 
 quality of voice, are intangible, illusive expres- 
 sions — born of a breath and dying with it. Could 
 they be photographed, or phonographed accu- 
 rately, their reproduction would furnish illus- 
 trations of the wrong interpretation of liter- 
 ature as marked as does bodily expression. 
 To a great extent this is inevitable; because ex- 
 pression of body and expression of voice are 
 effects of the same cause. 
 
 25 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 It is quite impossible to conceive of a reader's 
 expressing the universality, the meditative 
 solemnity of feeling expressed in the lines from 
 " Thanatopsis " ending with "wiU chase his 
 favorite phantom " while expressing through the 
 body the joyous freedom that a child might feel 
 if it were chasing a butterfly. 
 
 Anyone who loves hterature and who appre- 
 ciates that its richest treasures are only revealed 
 by oral interpretation, can not help feeling the 
 urgent need of some rational guide that shall en- 
 able its interpreters to keep their work at least 
 above the realm of burlesque. If this realm of 
 the ridiculous is but "a step from the sublime" 
 in written literature, it is also dangerously near all 
 the higher emotions in their oral interpretation. 
 
 It is believed that the interpretative classifica- 
 tions herein presented will enable interpreters, 
 teachers and students readily to determine to 
 what dramatic domain or realm a piece of litera- 
 ture belongs. To know this is to have the key- 
 note to its artistic rendition, and thus to safe- 
 guard oneself from unallowable license or re- 
 striction in interpretation. Each dramatic domain 
 
 26 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITER ATURB 
 
 has, as will be shown, its artistic limitations ; if 
 these are transgressed, the oral interpretation of 
 any piece of literature — no matter how noble, 
 sublime or ideal the subject matter — may easily 
 degenerate into burlesque. 
 
 Not until the whole of a machine is compre- 
 hended can one estimate the relative value of its 
 component parts ; not until the whole of a piece of 
 literature is comprehended — studied and analyzed 
 — from the interpreter's view-point, is one able 
 to estimate the relative dramatic value of any 
 word-picturing that may form its different parts. 
 For example, in Tennyson's ' ' The Charge of the 
 Light Brigade," at the beginning of the second 
 verse are the words, "Forward, the Light Bri- 
 gade! " These words by themselves seem to be 
 spoken in the first person; they suggest the tone 
 and manner of one giving a direct, confident 
 command. When studied as a part of the whole 
 poem, they are found to be spoken in the third 
 person, to be words of command which are 
 merely repeated by another person, telling of an 
 event — a national disaster — that occurred in some 
 past time. Moreover, their emotional atmosphere 
 
 27 
 
INTBRPRgTATlVH FORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 
 is fay removed from that of courageous, exulting 
 strife; instead, it is mournful, dirge-like. In 
 Christina Eossetti's "A Epyal Princess" occur 
 the words, " I, if I perish, perish. " As a dramatic 
 expression by itself these wpr(Js might suggest 
 several different emptional states^ according to 
 the imagination of the persons saying them, as 
 fear, sorrow, shrinking, horror or sadness; taken 
 in their dramatic relation to the whole they are 
 expressive of noble, self-abnegation to an heroic 
 cause. In T. B. Aldrich's poem "The Tragedy" 
 occurs the line '"A cheat, a gilded grief!' I 
 said." These words taken by themselves would 
 suggest a tone and manner of denunciation, 
 but the following line, " And my eyes 
 were fiUed with mist " — as also the remainder of 
 the poem — proves that when they are considered 
 in their relation to the whole poepa, their emo- 
 tional coloring is that of pity, regret, sympathetic 
 heartache. An^ again, in ^ro^hing's "The 
 Patriot," the first two verses, considered by them- 
 selves, suggest an emotional coloring quite the 
 opposite to that which they actually have when 
 taken in connection with the whoJLe poem. 
 
 28 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURE 
 
 " It was roses, roses, all the way, 
 With myrtle mixed in my path like mad : 
 
 The house roofs seemed to heave and sway, 
 The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, 
 
 A year ago on this very day. 
 
 "The air broke into a mist of bells. 
 The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. 
 
 Had I said, ' Good folk, mere noise repels — 
 But give me your sun from yonder skies ! ' 
 
 They had answered, ' And afterward, what else ? ' " 
 
 Certainly, these words have a joyous, jubilant 
 note. And that is the note that interpreters 
 give who do not, by an exercise of the dramatic 
 imagination, grasp the whole picture mentally; 
 albeit, it is an entirely false note when related to 
 the sentiment of the poem as a whole. 
 
 29 
 
II 
 
 RIGHT APPROACH TO LITERATURE 
 
 T is believed that the great majority 
 of the false and artificial rendering 
 of literature by readers and speakers 
 is due not to a lack of sincerity of 
 purpose, or lack of inherent dra- 
 matic ability, or lack of artistic appre- 
 ciation, but to the fact that as in- 
 terpreters they have not made the right approach 
 to literature in their initial study of it for oral 
 presentation. 
 
 To say that this approach should be through a 
 knowledge of its classification of interpretative 
 forms is only to advocate the same method in the 
 study of oral interpretation of literature that pre- 
 vails in almost all other branches of education. 
 Arlo Bates says, writing of hterature, "The stu- 
 dent can no more advance without classification 
 
 30 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB PORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 thanhecould climb to a roof without a ladder. " The 
 fact that oral interpreters of literature have been 
 trying to climb to heights without this "ladder" of 
 classification may account for their having made, 
 as a profession, so little progress. Possibly, here 
 is to be found the ultimate reason why the sub- 
 ject of elocution received no recognition by "The 
 Committee of Ten on Education, " some few years 
 ago, and why it is not more highly esteemed 
 popularly, to-day. Literature, the study of all 
 studies of most human interest, is itself in the 
 foremost rank educationally, and probably receives 
 more attention, in a popular sense, than any other 
 art, or any science. And, unquestionably, the 
 highest enjoyment of much hterature — especially 
 poetry — can be attained only by hearing it, for vi- 
 tal parts of its beauty, of its emotional effects, are 
 rhythm, tone color, melody and other elements 
 that only the voice can reveal. Surely there must 
 be something radically wrong — or wanting — in 
 the way that literature has been studied by oral 
 interpreters; otherwise, loving their work and 
 working with conscientious loyalty and devotion, 
 as many have done, they could not have failed to 
 
 31 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB PORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 
 gain a more general recognition of their work. 
 Without interpretative classifications, few 
 will fail of wrong conception, at times, and 
 consequently of confusion in treatment of the va- 
 rious forms that hterature presents, interpreta- 
 tively. Nor does "knowing literature," as that 
 phrase is frequently used, imply a knowledge of 
 these interpretative forms. 
 
 One may be a thorough student of literature in 
 many of its phases, its formation, history, growth, 
 of its influence, — social, political, national — of its 
 rhetorical and grammatical forms, of its prose and 
 poetical classifications as regards mechanical 
 form, and of its word technique, and yet, never 
 have given a thought to even its primary, most 
 obvious classifications as regards its oral 
 interpretation. 
 
 Lacking such classification to serve as a criter- 
 ion of taste and judgment, one of three things 
 usually results when a person essays to interpret 
 the various dramatic forms of literature, orally; 
 (1) All literature from plain narrative to the 
 drama will be rendered like verbal print. That 
 is to say, there will be little or no more emo- 
 
 32 
 
INTBRPRETATIVM PdRMS OP LlTBRAfURB 
 
 tional coloring given to the words by the voice 
 or body than the cold, lifeless type gives them 
 on the printed page. Type gives the same emo- 
 tionalj or rather non-embtiohal, value to a prob- 
 l6ra ill algebra that it do^s to a Shakespearean 
 tragedy. Sonie people read all literature in much 
 the same manner. Such reading is the oral pro- 
 nunciation of the printed page but it cannot just- 
 ly be called interpretixtion of Uteratufe^ for the pri- 
 mary element that distinguishes literature as ht- 
 erature from all other writing is its emotional 
 element; therefore, the interpreter of literature 
 nlust in some manner present or suggest this 
 vital element. Or, (2) there will be a tendency 
 to present spectacularly each separate idea. This 
 tendency leads the reader or speaker to actualize 
 by gestures and to elocutionize by voice, scenes, 
 actions, descriptions, emotions, everything that 
 is hinted at by the words; this, oftentimes, while 
 quite ignoring the fundamental thought or emo- 
 tion of the literature that they so pictorially 
 present in detail. Or, (3) the rendering will be 
 principally imitative; different kinds of literature 
 
 33 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 will be treated as one has heard some reader or 
 speaker treat the same pieces or similar ones. 
 
 It is plain to be seen that none of these ap- 
 proaches to literature can often result in satisfac- 
 tory oral interpretation. Of course, there is occa- 
 sionally a reader who has an intuitive perception, 
 of the different dramatic forms that literature 
 presents to the oral interpreter. In these excep- 
 tional cases, approximately true interpretation is 
 given even without any weU-defined interpreta- 
 tive classification as a criterion. But classifica- 
 tion would undoubtedly be an aid even to those 
 readers who are blessed with large intuitive 
 perception of the right and wrong in interpreta- 
 tion. One hears and sees interpreters whose 
 work is excellent in general make occasional 
 conspicuous errors in rendering; errors that could 
 never occur if the reader had criteria which 
 clearly distinguished certain simple, fundamen- 
 tal differences in the interpretative forms of lit- 
 erature, which, in turn, by virtue of their form, 
 necessitate certain corresponding differences of 
 treatment in rendering. 
 
 34 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 While it has not seemed difficult to assign se- 
 lections to their relative right classification, under 
 the heads here used, it has often been a question 
 of fine distinctions to say under exactly which 
 head of two or three of similar significance, inter- 
 pretatively, a selection should be placed. Often- 
 times a poem seems to partake about equally of 
 the elements that belong to two or three inter- 
 pretative forms; but in such cases, it will be 
 found that the several classifications under which 
 a selection seemingly might be placed are them- 
 selves closely related in dramatic significance. 
 Take for illustration Eugene Field's "Little 
 Boy Blue." Whether this is placed under the 
 head of Contemplative Address, Soliloquy or 
 Narrative Monologue really matters very little; 
 it would be rendered, in any case, virtually 
 the same. But it would matter very materially^ 
 in the dramatic license allowed in its rendering, 
 if it were placed under the head of Direct Person- 
 al Address or Character Monologue. 
 
 The various dramatic significance of these dif- 
 ferent interpretative forms will be briefly con- 
 sidered in the following chapter. 
 
 35 
 
Ill 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF CLASSIFICATION 
 
 "It is important to notice that men generally before they 
 ■can master the materials about them, must do what is ex- 
 pressed in the old saying 'Classify and Conquer' . . . With- 
 out classification to begin with, there can be no knowledge, 
 no understanding, no efficient use of the materials wliich na- 
 ture furnishes." — Professor G. L. Raymond in "Genesis of 
 Art Forms y 
 
 HE primary rhetorical forms which 
 are quite universally accepted, name- 
 ly, oratory, representative discourse 
 and poetry; and the secondary ones 
 of representative discourse, as ex- 
 position, argument, description, nar- 
 ration; and those of poetry, as di- 
 dactic, lyric, epic and dramatic; are founded 
 upon difference in structure, difference in 
 purpose and difference in subject material. 
 The classification of interpretative forms is 
 founded on differences that inhere in the litera- 
 
 36 
 
INTgRPRE,T4TIVB FORMS QF UTBRATURE. 
 
 ture, partly bec,ause of its rhetorical forms and 
 partly because of its dramatic significance. An 
 important factor that is not significant in writ- 
 ten forms has here to be taken into consider- 
 atiori, namely, the relation that the literature — 
 because of its dramsitic significance — imposes be- 
 tween itself, the interpreter and his hearers, the- 
 audience. 
 
 This relation is one of the two dramatic ele- 
 ments — the other is the dorninant emotion or 
 thought of the literature^— that must determine 
 what the general treatment of any piece of liter- 
 ature shall be in oral expression. Important as 
 this relation is, it seems never to have been pre- 
 sented definitely in any work on reading or elo- 
 cution. It is remarkable that it should have 
 been so ignored by those who were writing chief- 
 ly to promote oral interpretation of literature, for 
 it must be readily conceded that it makes a great 
 difference in the oral treatment of a piece whether 
 it represents the speaker as talking directly to 
 the audience, or to some other person related to 
 the literature, or to himself, or as apostrophizing; 
 whether it r^epf events what is said as happening 
 
 37 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURE 
 
 now, or in some past time; whether it represents 
 the speaker as the person chiefly concerned in 
 what is being said or enacted, or as merely rela- 
 ting something that has happened to others; and 
 whether or not it contains words directly quoted. 
 What the dramatic relation of the interpreter 
 is to the literature and to the audience is indi- 
 cated in literature by : The person in which it is 
 written ; the tense in which it written ; the per- 
 son or persons, or object to which it is addressed; 
 and the presence or absence, in the main com- 
 position, of words in the form of either direct 
 or indirect discourse. 
 
 Illustrations: 
 
 Written in first person, singular: 
 
 Nobody looks at the clouds with a love that equals mine ; 
 I know them in their beauty, in the morn or even shine. 
 I know them, and possess them, my castles in the air. 
 My palaces, cathedrals, and hanging gardens fair. 
 
 Now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of 
 poetry. I have tried to read Shakespeare, and found it so in- 
 tolerably dull that it nauseated me If I had to live my 
 
 life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and 
 listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the 
 parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept 
 alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happi- 
 ness, and probably may be injurious to the intellect, and 
 
 38 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATVRB 
 
 more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emo- 
 tional part of our nature. — Charles Darwin. 
 
 Written in first person, plural: 
 
 In all our schemes for ideal living we fail to be practical^ 
 and therefore fail to be moral, if we forget that a certain 
 amount of genuine toil is both necessary and desirable, — 
 C. Hanford Henderson. 
 
 Written in first person, pronoun not used: 
 
 The highest art never photographs life, it reveals life. A 
 machine can copy; only a genius can interpret the world. — 
 Edward Howard Griggs. 
 
 Written in third person: 
 
 "Joy! joy!" she cried; "my task is done — 
 The gates are past, and heaven is won!" 
 
 — Thomas Moore. 
 
 The traveller turned his steps towards an inn, which was 
 the best in the place and went at once to the kitchen. The 
 host, hearing the door open and a newcomer enter, said, 
 without raising his eyes from the ranges : 
 
 "What will monseiur have ?" 
 
 "Something to eat and lodging." — Victor Hugo. 
 
 Written in the present tense: 
 
 I pray you, do not turn your head ; 
 And let your hands lie folded, so. 
 It was a dress like this, wine-red. 
 That Dante liked so, long ago. 
 
 — Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
 
 Yet everywhere! in prose writing what we call force, energy, 
 vigor, vivacity, brilliancy, are only names for this incidental 
 
 39 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 power to stir various emotions. Nowhere, except in purely 
 scientific writing — which is not literature, and admits no lit- 
 erary virtues except clearness — is this effect upon the emo- 
 tions needless or out of place. — Professor C. T. Winchester. 
 
 Written in past tense: 
 
 "My sister! thou hast found," the Master said, 
 "Searching for what none finds — that bitter balm 
 I had to give thee. "^5z>- Edward Arnold. 
 
 Mrs. Kemble had, indeed, so much finer ^ sense of comedy 
 than any one else that she herself knew best, as well as recked 
 least, how she might exhilarate. I remember at the play she 
 often said, "Yes, they're funny; but they don't beg^n to know 
 how funny they might be." — Henry James. 
 
 Written as addressed to one person or a body 
 of persons as an audience : 
 
 Let one go quietly onward toward what is real and in the 
 end what one is must show. The only answer to unjust criti- 
 cism is earnest work, the only right response to praise and 
 appreciation is earnest y^oxV.-r-rEdward Howard Griggs. 
 
 The royal feast was done ; the king 
 Sought some new sport to banish care. 
 And to his jester cried, "Sir Fool, 
 Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!" 
 
 — Edward Rowland Sill. 
 
 Addressed to one person or a number of per- 
 sons whose presence is denoted by the form of 
 the literature: 
 
 This division includes the drama in all its forms. 
 
 40 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 Addressed to one person or more whose pres- 
 ence is implied by the words of the speaker: 
 
 Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, 
 When'er I passed her ; but who passed without 
 Much the same smile ? This gfrew ; I gave commands ; 
 Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands 
 As if alive. Will't please you rise ? We'll meet 
 The company below, then. — Robert Browning. 
 
 Addressed to oneself: 
 
 This division includes all forms of soliloquy. 
 
 Addressed to Deity or to some abstract quality;, 
 
 Lord of the Universe ! shield us and guide us, 
 Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun ! 
 Thou hast united us, who shall divide us ? 
 Keep us, O keep us, the Many in One ! 
 
 — Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 O death, where is thy victory ? O grave, where is thy sting? 
 
 — J Cor. XV., js'^- 
 
 Addressed to some natural element or some 
 concrete object: 
 
 Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again ! 
 
 I hold to you the hands you first beheld, 
 
 To show they still are free, — Sheridan Knowles. 
 
 blithe new-comer ! I have heard, 
 
 1 hear thee and rejoice : 
 
 O cuckoo ! shall I call thee bird ? 
 
 Or but a wandering voice ? — William Wordsworth. 
 
 41 
 
INTBRPRBTATIvn PORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 Direct quotation in the main composition: 
 
 There are a sort of men whose visages 
 Do cream and mantle like a standing pond, 
 And do a willful stillness entertain, 
 With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion 
 Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit. 
 As who should say, "I am Sir Oracle, 
 And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!" 
 O my Antonio, I do know of these 
 That therefore only are reputed wise 
 For saying nothing. — Shakespeare. 
 
 In one of these pauses she recoiled and cried out, for she saw 
 a figure standing in the room. The basin fell to the ground 
 broken, and the water flowed to the feet of Madame Defarge. 
 By strange, stern ways, and through much staining of blood, 
 those feet had come to meet that water. 
 
 Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, "The wife 
 of Evremonde; where is she ?" 
 
 It flashed upon Miss Pross's mind that the doors were all 
 standing open, and would suggest flight. Her first act was 
 to shut them. — Charles Dickens. 
 
 Indirect quotation in the main composition: 
 
 In such neighborhoods the corner drug store is the vital 
 center of information. Mr. Shaw hurried to one in the next 
 block. A communicative clerk was engaged at that moment 
 in coating a batch of aromatic pills by rolling them in fine 
 powder scattered on a glass slab. Did he know anything 
 about the vacant tenement house down the street ? Well, 
 yes, he knew all there was to know. About a week ago the 
 police turned out the whole precious menagerie, neck and 
 heels. The keys were at the precinct station. The building 
 belonged to a man named Shaw — a philanthropic freak. 
 The clerk himself had never seen him. He was supposed to 
 be abroad somewhere. — Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
 
 42 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 INTERPRETATIVE FORMS CLASSIFIED 
 
 Address 
 
 Naeeative 
 Soliloquy 
 
 Monologue 
 Drama 
 
 I. Direct Personal 
 Address 
 
 Lecture 
 
 Political Speech 
 
 Sermon 
 
 Oration 
 
 Address 
 
 Exclamatory and 
 Imperative 
 Forms 
 
 ( The Apostrophe 
 n. Impersonal Address -j Many Lyrics 
 
 TTT u <•. A K ti ( Impassioned Declara- 
 
 UI. l£xalted Address \ tion or Confession 
 / or Supplication 
 
 rV. Contemplative Address 
 
 V. Plain Narrative 
 
 VI. Dramatic Narrative 
 
 VII. SoUIoqay 
 
 Vin, Narrative Monologue 
 IX. Dramatic Monologue 
 X. Character Monologue 
 
 XI. Tragedy 
 Xn. Comedy 
 Xm. Melodrama 
 XrV. Farce 
 XV. Burlesque 
 
 43 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OF UTBRATURB 
 
 These classifications are based upon the two 
 dramatic elements that must determine what the 
 general treatment of any piece of literature shall 
 be in oral expression ; namely, the dominant 
 thought or emotion of the literature, and the 
 dramatic relation that the literature imposes be- 
 tween itself, the interpreter and the audience. 
 
 44 
 
IV 
 
 THE INTERPRETER'S RELATION 
 
 N defining the dramatic relation that 
 the different forms of hterature im- 
 pose between the interpreter and the 
 audience, the terms "objective," 
 "subjective" and conversationally in- 
 timate will often be used. The terms 
 "objective" and "subjective" have 
 been the cause of much metaphysical discussion 
 by writers treating of the mind's states, but as 
 they are here used they are easily comprehended. 
 Subjective, objective and conversationally in- 
 timate are terms used to designate that general 
 character of different interpretative forms 
 which denotes the direction of the mind's atten- 
 tion of the person represented as speaking. 
 
 Subjective denotes that the speaker's attention 
 is wholly or chiefly turned inward on his own 
 
 45 
 
INTHRPRETATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 thoughts and feelings, or is directed to the con- 
 templation of abstract themes, or to the analyza- 
 tion or philosophical consideration of material 
 conditions, things and people. 
 
 Objective denotes that the speaker's attention 
 is chiefly turned outward toward life and action, 
 is directed to material conditions, objects and to 
 people, or to his relation to any of these. 
 
 Conversationally intimate is a new term ; 
 it is coined because it pecuharly implies a partic- 
 ular kind of objectivity in the speaker's mind. 
 It usually characterizes conversation — either 
 fully expressed as in the drama and dialogue, or 
 conversation implied as in the dramatic mono- 
 logue. A conversationally intimate attitude of 
 mind suggests a closer, a more sympathetic rela- 
 tionship of the speaker's mind toward the person or 
 persons he is addressing than is ever present in 
 those interpretative forms of literature that are 
 simply objective in character. To express emo- 
 tional dialogue or emotional monologue in a 
 merely ordinarily objective manner — no matter 
 how much passion may be expressed — is to make 
 it oracular, bombastic or "ready" — anything 
 
 46 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURB 
 
 but like the actual words of living men and 
 women swayed by the stress and intensity of 
 feelings aroused by a word, look or act. 
 
 (1) Direct Personal Address : In this inter- 
 pretative form the dramatic relation of the inter- 
 preter to the literature and to the audience is that 
 of a person speaking his own thoughts directly 
 to another person or body of persons. It is ex- 
 pressed in first person; present tense; and may 
 or may not contain words quoted, directly or in- 
 directly. Literature of this interpretative form 
 could always commence with, Mr. Chairman, 
 Fellow Citizens, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, 
 or with some person's name in direct address. 
 
 Some of the different popular names of litera- 
 ture of this interpretative form are, address, po- 
 litical or legislative speech, lecture, sermon, 
 oration. 
 
 All of these are markedly objective in character. 
 
 (2) Impersonal Address: In this interpreta- 
 tive form the dramatic relation of the interpreter 
 to the hterature and to the audience is that of a 
 person speaking to some impersonal thing, an 
 element, a condition, an idea, a virtue, or to some 
 
 47 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 
 material environment, or association. It is ex- 
 pressed in first person; in present tense. 
 
 According to the order of the thought or emo- 
 tion, Impersonal Address may be either subjective 
 or objective in character. 
 
 (3) Exalted Address: In this interpretative 
 form the dramatic relation of the interpreter to 
 the literature and to the audience, is generally 
 that of a person acting as spokesman for a num- 
 ber of persons, or is that of a person dehvering a 
 message of grave importance to a company of 
 ■which he is one. It is virtually always expressed 
 in first person; present tense. 
 
 Exalted Address is always more or less object- 
 ive in character. 
 
 (4) Contemplative Address: In this interpre- 
 tative form the dramatic relation of the interpre- 
 ter to the literature and to the audience is that of 
 a person speaking about equally to himself and 
 to another person, orothers,or to some object, in 
 a reflective manner. It is expressed in first person ; 
 in present tense. 
 
 Contemplative address is subjectively objective 
 in character. 
 
 48 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 (5) Plain Narrative: In this interpretative 
 form the dramatic relation of the interpreter to 
 the literature and to the audience is that of a per- 
 son telling a story to another person or any num- 
 ber of persons. Instead of speaking his own ideas 
 directly, he narrates past events and incidents 
 about himself, or others, or about objects and 
 scenes. 
 
 It is expressed, if the story is about the speaker, 
 in first person ; if about others or impersonal 
 things, in third person ; in past tense ; and may, 
 although it seldom does, contain words quoted 
 indirectly. It never contains words quoted di- 
 rectly; when these occur, the interpretative form 
 is not Plain Narrative, but Dramatic Narrative. 
 
 Plain Narrative is objective in character al- 
 though not usually so forceful and energetic as 
 many kinds of direct personal address; its purpose 
 is more to interest and entertain than to effect 
 the hearer's convictions. 
 
 Note. — Simple description of scenery, buildings, customs 
 and of existing conditions, where no story is related, might 
 seem to merit individual classification. But as such descrip- 
 tion is very seldom found entirely disassociated from narra- 
 tion, and as it often occurs for a paragraph or so in maKy of 
 
 49 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 the interpretative forms, even the drama, it seems superfluous 
 to give it a form by itself ; more especially, as the dramatic 
 relation of the interpreter to it is identical with that in Plain 
 Narrative. 
 
 (6) Dramatic Narrative: In this interpretative 
 form the dramatic relation of the interpreter to 
 the literature and to the audience is that of a per- 
 son telling a story directly to another person or 
 to any number of persons. It is expressed, if the 
 story is about the speaker, in the first person, if 
 about others or impersonal things, in third person;, 
 in past tense; contains words directly quoted; and 
 may or may not contain words indirectly quoted. 
 
 Dramatic Narrative is objective in character. 
 
 (7) Soliloquy: In this interpretative form the 
 dramatic relation of the interpreter to the litera- 
 ture and to the audience is that of a person talking 
 to himself regardless of the presence or absence 
 of others. It is expressed in first person; in pres- 
 ent tense ; and rarely contains words quoted 
 directly or indirectly. 
 
 Monologue: The dictionary distinguishes three 
 types of monologue, each of which requires some- 
 what different handling in interpretation. These 
 distinctions are: 
 
 50 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP UTBRATURB 
 
 {a) ' 'When an actor tells a continuous story in. 
 which he is the chief character, referring to others 
 as absent." This type is herein called Narrative 
 Monologue. 
 
 (b) ''When an actor implies that others are 
 present, leading the audience to imagine what they 
 say by his rephes." This type is herein called 
 Dramatic Monologue. 
 
 (c) "When an actor assumes the voice and 
 character of several characters successively." 
 This type is heirein called Character Monologue. 
 
 (8) Narrative Monologue: In this interpreta- 
 tive form the dramatic relation of the interpreter 
 to the literature and to the audience is that of a 
 person telling some past event about himself either 
 to the audience or to some imaginary person. It is 
 expressed in first person; usually in past tense; and 
 may or may not contain words quoted directly 
 or indirectly. 
 
 Narrative Monologue may be quite objective in 
 character ; especially so, when it is not obviously 
 addressed to some imaginary person. When it is 
 so addressed, the relation is more personal ; thert 
 
 51 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 the monologue is conversationally intimate rather 
 than objective in character. 
 
 (9) Dramatic Monologue : In this interpre- 
 tative form the dramatic relation of the interpreter 
 to the literature and to the audience is that of a 
 person talking to an imaginary person or a num- 
 ber of such persons. It is expressed in first person; 
 in present tense ; and often contains words direct- 
 ly quoted and may contain indirect quotations. 
 
 Dramatic Monologue is conversationally inti- 
 mate in character. 
 
 (10) Character Monologue : In this interpre- 
 tative form the dramatic relation of the interpreter 
 to the literature and to the audience is that of a 
 person speaking successively as different individ- 
 uals, either to some imaginary person or persons, 
 ■or to the audience. It is expressed in first person ; 
 in present tense ; and frequently contains words 
 quoted indirectly and may contain those quoted 
 directly. 
 
 Character Monologue may be objective or con- 
 versationally intimate in character. 
 
 (11 — 15) Drama : In this interpretative form 
 the dramatic relation of the interpreter to the 
 
 52 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE; 
 
 literature and to the audience is that of two or 
 more persons talking to one another — not to the 
 audience but rather for it. It is expressed in 
 first person ; in present tense ; and may or may 
 not contain words quoted directly or indirectly. 
 
 Primarily, the Drama is conversationally inti- 
 mate in character; in it, however, are to be 
 found examples of all other interpretative forms. 
 Each of these would partake of its own interpre- 
 tative characteristics, as a soliloquy byone of the 
 characters would be subjective, of, a direct per- 
 sonal address, as to an army, would be objective. 
 
 In the five classifications under the drama — 
 Tragedy, Comedy, Melodrama, Farce and Bur- 
 lesque — the dramatic relation of the interpreter 
 is the same. These classifications are distin- 
 guished from each other by the dominant thought 
 and emotion of the literature and the style in 
 which it is treated in composition. 
 
 53 
 
GESTURES AND DETERMINING ELEMENTS 
 IN RENDITION 
 
 EFOKE giving some suggestions re- 
 garding the general treatment in oral 
 expression of the various interpre- 
 tative forms, it may be well to con- 
 sider briefly the chief elements that 
 determine what this treatment shall 
 be and, also, to consider somewhat 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 the significance of different kinds of gestures. 
 
 GESTURES: 
 The three kinds of gesture* that relate to the 
 
 *There is another class of gestures, namely : Self-Manifes- 
 tive gestures ; but such gestures have no immediate relation 
 to literature. Self-Manifestive gestures are outward signs of 
 the speaker's personal condition irrespective of the thought or 
 emotion embodied in the literature which he is trying to ex- 
 press ; these gestures reveal such states as nervousness, fear, 
 intensity, determination or dominance. 
 
 54 
 
INTERPRBTATlvn FORMS OF LITER ATURB 
 
 interpretation of literature are Descriptive, Sym- 
 pathetic and Emotionally-Manifestive gestures. 
 
 Descriptive Gestures are those bodily move- 
 ments that in greater or less degree literalize the 
 words spoken by the interpreter or speaker. 
 They are the only kind of gesture that is subject 
 to definite practice, that tsan be specifically ana- 
 lyzed and taught as "gesture drills," because 
 they are the only gestures that do not have 
 their origin in emotion. They come into being 
 not because the literature arouses a feeling of 
 sympathy in the interpreter, but because the 
 words suggest something to his mind that he can 
 do with his arms, hands, head, feet or whole body. 
 
 Many descriptive gestures used by readers are 
 formal, definitive, exact in details, much prac- 
 tised and finely "finished" in execution; the 
 "wrist leads," and the arm and fingers "unfold in 
 succession." One authority* states that the five 
 most important qualities of gesture are: " Grace, 
 Force, Precision, Sequence, and Economy;" that 
 Precision naturally resolves itself into five parts, 
 
 *" Practical Elocution," Fulton and Trueblood. 
 
 55 
 
INTBRPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 ' ' the Preparation, the Sweep, the Stroke, the 
 Transition, if there be any, and the Return." 
 
 On the other hand, many public speakers, lect- 
 urers, ministers, lawyers, whose proud boast it 
 is that they "have never taken a lesson in elocu- 
 tion, or even given a thought to the making of 
 gestures, that the gestures they make are all in- 
 stinctive, natural," use a great many descrip- 
 tive gestures. The difference between those ges- 
 tures that have been thought out, analyzed in de- 
 tail and sedulously practised in preparation and 
 those that come "instinctively" without any 
 preparation, is usually in favor of the latter, 
 because they are less mechanical, less distract- 
 ingly exact in finished details. But both are bad. 
 Instead of helping to present the thought or emo- 
 tion of the literature, they divert the attention of 
 the auditors from it by their own pictorial effects, 
 and, moreover, they are unnatural, untrue to hf e. 
 
 It may be maintained by some that the question 
 of making many or few gestures is chiefly a ques- 
 tion of nationality, of temperament, of different 
 individuals, that one person is more emotional 
 and quickly responsive than another and, there- 
 
 56 
 
TNTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 fore, makes ten gestures, perhaps, to the other's 
 one, in daily life. Granted that that is true; 
 even so, it has no bearing upon the subject 
 under immediate consideration, namely, the 
 making of few or many descriptive gestures. 
 
 To temperament, unquestionably, is due to a 
 large extent the absence or presence of frequent 
 gestures in one's daily expression — (whether tem- 
 perament should be allowed to so affect an art ex- 
 pression, as in the interpretation of literature, is 
 an open question) — but temperament affects the 
 number of sympathetic and emotionally-manifest- 
 ive gestures, not the number of descriptive gestures; 
 the former are the bodily responses to emotional 
 stimuli, whereas, descriptive gestures are the 
 bodily response to mental direction. 
 
 Temperament never made anyone, — not even 
 the most volatile nature of Southern Europe, 
 where the people are almost constantly responsive, 
 sympathetically, through the body to the words 
 thby speak— in daily life by descriptive gestures, 
 literalizethe "coming and going of the wind," the 
 "ebb and flow of the sea," the "trembling of an 
 old man," and the "going up into high places" (see 
 
 57 
 
INTHRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 page 17), unless the person could not speak a 
 language familiar to his auditor and hence was 
 forced to resort to literal pantomime. 
 
 A little child might so act out words of descrip- 
 tion in play where he would stimulate the imagin- 
 ation by saying, "Now, I'm the wind, " "Now I'm 
 the sea, " as children often say, "Get off the track! 
 Here comes the choo-choo train!" and accompany 
 the words with running heavily and puffing like 
 the exhaust valve of a steam engine. Such liter- 
 alizing by the child in play is exactly the same 
 in kind as is much of the descriptive gesture work 
 done by readers who have studied formal gestures 
 and by public speakers who gesture "instinctive- 
 ly," "naturally." 
 
 One of the chief causes of the prevalence of ht- 
 eralizing words by readers and speakers is to be 
 found in the illustration on page 13 regarding 
 school children who commence ciphering at the 
 mention of figures regardless of their relation to 
 the whole problem. Nothing is more essential 
 to true, unaffected speaking and reading than an 
 appreciation of relative values. Doubtless, 
 another cause is the desire — whether recognized 
 
 58 
 
INTERPRET ATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 by himself or not — of the reader or speaker not 
 "to appear stiff," "to be at ease," "natural," on 
 the platform. As constraint is synonymous with 
 stiffness, he tries to break free from any con- 
 straint his position might quite naturally induce 
 and so " throws himself freely into his words," 
 too freely, in fact, for it is without discrimination 
 or any artistic perception of proportion, relative 
 values or unity of expression. 
 
 To be at ease and free from constraint and self - 
 consciousness is essential to one's best expression 
 at all times, but judgment, discrimination and 
 good taste are also elements in man's relation and 
 expression to his fellow men. 
 
 Descriptive gestures are true to life and, there- 
 fore, justifiable in rendering (1) when used for the 
 purpose of intellectual emphasis, as one might say 
 to a little child "Not two but three, see?" holding 
 up three fingers, (2) when used to present the def- 
 inite shape of an object if it be essential to present 
 it, (3) when used for the purpose of legitimate 
 stage setting, (4) in certain comedy passages 
 where the comedy element is more or less depend 
 ent upon the action, and (5) in pantomime. 
 
 59 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 When descriptive gestures are elsewhere em- 
 ployed, they are simply burlesque features. 
 
 Syrapaithetic Gestures are those bodily move- 
 ments that result from an emotional sjonpathy 
 with some action, condition or description named 
 by the words. They may suggest actions, con- 
 ditions and descriptions named by the words but 
 never describe them; their origin is always an 
 emotion, never an intellectual intent. To illus- 
 trate: If, on the words, "He unflinchingly 
 wrote his name in a full, round hand," a reader 
 or speaker should make a gesture indicative of 
 writing in a "full, round hand" that would be 
 describing or literalizing by action the exact 
 thought conveyed— a descriptive gesture; if he 
 rnade an impulsive, free movement of the hand, 
 as if quickly moving it across a sheet of paper, 
 that would be to suggest the action named by the 
 words, it would be a response to the emotion 
 aroused by the situation — a gesture of sympathy. 
 
 Because sympathetic gestures are always sug- 
 gestive in their character and never descriptive, 
 details never appear in them and they are never 
 precise or "finished." Because they have their 
 
 60 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 
 origin in the emotion aroused in the reader or 
 speaker by the words, they are always originally 
 spontaneous and are not subject to specific study 
 and practice. 
 
 Emotionally-Manifestive Gestures are those bod- 
 ily responses that result from the emotion aroused 
 in the reader by the literature independently of 
 any reference it may contain to any specific ac- 
 tion, condition or description. These gestures 
 never literalize, never suggest any description or 
 action; they reveal emotional states, only. If in 
 the illustration above given "He unflinchingly 
 wrote his name in a full, round hand," the read- 
 er's body had involuntarily tensed, or his hand 
 tightly closed, such bodily response would have 
 been an emotionally -manifestive gesture; it 
 would neither have described the writing, nor 
 suggested the reader's sympathy with the SiC- 
 tion perse, but it would have revealed an emo- 
 tional stress, such as heroic determination or 
 fortitude under some trying circumstances, not 
 pictured forth by the words. Only collateral 
 thinking could supply the stimulus for such order 
 of bodily response. 
 
 6i 
 
INTHRPRETATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 The origin of emotionally-manifestive gestures 
 in actual living is in the individual's emotional 
 states ; in rendering, it is in the dramatic imagi- 
 nation of the reader. 
 
 Delsarte wrote: "G-esture is the language of 
 ellipse." He explained the ellipse as "a hid- 
 den meaning whose revelation belongs to ges- 
 ture." Emotionally-manifestive gestures alone 
 wholly satisfy this definition. Descriptive ges- 
 tures perform a directly different purpose, name- 
 ly, to re -present the ideas definitely expressed by 
 the words. Sympathetic gestures suggest that 
 which is named by the words ; their emotional 
 coloring is, in a way, revelatory of a meaning 
 otherwise obscure and, therefore, elhptical in its 
 nature — as the word elhpse is used in Delsarte 
 literature. But emotionally-manifestive gestures 
 are purely elliptical. Their office is strictly "the 
 revelation of hidden meanings." These mean- 
 ings are always emotional in nature ; emotional- 
 ly-manifestive gestures, which are the only ges- 
 tures that can reveal those meanings, are, clearly, 
 the most subtle and the most significant of all 
 gestures, for, as Professor 0. T. "Winchester says, 
 
 62 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 "the value of any writing is measured very 
 largely by the intensity or power of its emotion;" 
 likewise, the value of its oral interpretation is 
 very largely dependent upon the expression of its 
 emotion. 
 
 How many emotional meanings may be hidden 
 in the exclamation "Oh!" This little word of 
 itself may be said generally to signify some degree 
 of surprise for of itself it reveals no other spec- 
 ific emotion ; but by the quality of tone in 
 which it is said, or by the emotionally-manifestive 
 gestures that accompany it, it is made to re- 
 veal a score of widely different emotions from 
 hatred and fear to pity and love. 
 
 It would seem as if Delsarte's teachings regard- 
 ing gesture had been much misconstrued by many 
 of the teachers in this country who claim to be his 
 followers ; for in their presentation of his princi^ 
 pies — in writing, in teaching and in actual per- 
 sonal demonstrations — they dwell principally 
 upon descriptive gestures. Whereas, M. L'Abbe 
 Delaumosne, whose "Delsarte System of Ora- 
 tory" is one of the most authentic books on Dela- 
 sarte's work, says: "It is not the word but the 
 
 63 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 
 thought that the gesture must announce." "In 
 portraying the sentiment of love the hand must 
 not be carried to the heart. This is nonsense; it 
 is an oratorical crime. " "Tho repeated extension 
 of the arms denotes but little intelligence." "The 
 expression of the face should make the gesture of 
 the arms forgotten. " And further, ' 'A gesture 
 must correspond to every elUpse. For example: 
 'This medley of glory and gain vexes me. ' If we 
 attribute something ignominious or abject to the 
 word medley, there is an ellipse in the phrase, be- 
 cause ignominy is implied rather than expressed. 
 Gesture is then necessary here to express the 
 value of the implied adjective, ignominious." 
 
 Here, as always with emotionally-manifestive 
 gestures, it is not the words themselves but the 
 collateral thinking, the arousal of the dramatic 
 imagination, that causes the bodily response. 
 
 Gestures in Rendition. 
 
 The rendition of literature that is objective in 
 nature is, in general, characterized chiefly by 
 sympathetic gestures; by emotionaUy-manifestive 
 gestures when it is strongly emotional in a person* 
 
 64 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 al sense; descriptive gestures are occasionally 
 permissible for emphasis, definition, stage setting 
 or for comedy effects. 
 
 The rendition of literature that is subjective in 
 nature is characterized chiefly by emotionally- 
 manifestive gestures; occasionally sympathic ges- 
 tures might occur; descriptive ones, never. 
 
 The rendition of literature that is conversation- 
 ally intimate in nature is characterized by either 
 emotionally-manifestive or sympathetic gestures, 
 or by both. Descriptive gestures might occur 
 for the same purposes as mentioned above, but 
 the occasion for them would ordinarily be very 
 infrequent. 
 
 The chief elements that determine the gen- 
 eral TREATMENT OF THE DIFFERENT FORMS OF 
 LITERATURE IN ORAL INTERPRETATION ARE : — 
 
 (1) The, dominant thought or emotion of the lit- 
 erature; (2) its general character — objective, 
 subjective or conversationally intimate; (3) the 
 person in which it is written— first or third; 
 and (4) the time in which it is written— present 
 or past tense. 
 
 65 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 (1) In all rendition the primary essential is to 
 present the underlying spirit or motive of the lit- 
 erature ; all else is of minor importance to this. 
 Whether a piece of literature is argumentive, ex- 
 pository, persuasive, didactic, heroic, tragic, pa- 
 thetic, humorous or contemplative depends upon 
 the dominant thought or emotion. 
 
 The dominant thought or emotion gives, of 
 course, the atmosphere to the rendition. It de- 
 termines the difference betvp-een a farce and a 
 great tragedy, which are written in the same lit- 
 erary form. 
 
 (2) These differences have already been sug- 
 gested. (Page 45.) 
 
 (3) Given two pieces of hterature of similar 
 emotional intensity and power, one written in the 
 first person and one in the third person, the former 
 would generally permit of a more dramatic inter- 
 pretation than would the latter. The signs of 
 the third person when there is dialogue, "he 
 said," or "she replied," or "the gentleman an- 
 swered, " place the interpreter — so far as the au- 
 dience is concerned — several removes farther 
 from the emotion of the literature than he is 
 
 66 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 when the literature is written in the first person;, 
 where, virtually, he says to the audience, "Thi& 
 was my own experience," if referring to the past, 
 or, " I think and feel so and so, " if speaking in 
 the present tense. 
 
 The difference is most marked when the htera- 
 ture written in the first person is also in present 
 tense, as a large proportion of writing is that i& 
 strongly emotional. The following quotations il- 
 lustrate this marked difference in treatment : 
 
 "Morning, evening, noon and night, 
 ' Praise God 1 ' sang Theocrite." 
 
 Here the reader is merely in the position of one 
 telling the audience about the joyous devotion of 
 another person. It would be absurd for the read- 
 er to impersonate Theocrite on the words 'Praise 
 God!' 
 
 " Gauthier's dwelling-place 
 God lighten ! May his soul find grace ! " 
 
 In this instance the reader is in the position of 
 a person actually saying that she hopes her tra- 
 ducer's soul may be at peace. Naturally, here, 
 as in our daily experience, the speaker is mor& 
 dramatically alive to his own experiences, especi- 
 
 67 
 
intmrprbtativb forms op litbrature 
 
 ally to his emotional states at the present time^-^ 
 which he tells in the first person — than to those 
 experiences that relate to his neighbor — which 
 he tells in third person. 
 
 There are, however, some important exceptions 
 to this difference in the treatment of literature 
 written in the first person and in the third per- 
 son. Literature that presents the reader as a 
 person telling of a conversation between another 
 person and himself, where the emotional interest is 
 about equal in the two sides of the conversation, 
 is one such exception. Henry 0. Bunner's little 
 poem "Candor," is an illustration in point. The 
 first three verses commence, ' ' 'I know what you 
 are going to say,' she said;" and end with, " 'Now 
 aren't you, honestly?' 'Yes,' I said." In the last 
 verse, the respective position of the speakers is 
 reversed; it commences, " '1 know what you are 
 going to say,' I said;" and ends, " 'Now aren't 
 you, honestly?' 'Ye-es,' she said." 
 
 Another class of exceptions is in literature 
 that presents the reader as telling of a past con- 
 versation between another person and himself, 
 where the words of the other pereon— those 
 
 68 
 
INTBBPRETATIVB FORMS OP UTBRAWRB 
 
 marked by "he sai{i"^are of much greatej- im^ 
 portance, or emotional intensity than are those 
 that are seemingly spoken by the reader-r^those 
 marked by "I said." 
 
 Indirect Discourse: Another literary form 
 that should here be considered is indirect dis- 
 course, i. e., where the words of the speaker are 
 altered, as in "he said he would go." The same 
 thought expressed in direct discourse would be, 
 "he said, 'I will go."' The indirect form more 
 nearly approaches the form of plain narrative 
 and is, therefore, less dramatic in nature than di- 
 rect discourse in third person. 
 
 (4) Ab literature written in the first person per- 
 mits of a more dramatic rendition than doQS that 
 written in the third person, so does literature 
 written in the present tense permit of a more 
 dramatic rendition than does that written in the 
 past tense. The psychology of this difference is 
 simple. Past emotions can never be re- felt with 
 the same intensity as when they were first experi- 
 enced. No calling up of antecedent conditions can 
 quite create the original stimuU. A strong emotion 
 comes at first with the stimulus of an unexpected 
 
 69 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 shock, and unwittingly occupies the "center of the 
 field of consciousness ; " but, with time, all emo- 
 tions, all experiences, come to be more and more 
 a part of the "fringe of consciousness" and no 
 matter how vivid the dramatic imagination, they 
 can never be brought back into the absolute ' 'cen- 
 ter" they originally occupied. Moreover, in telling 
 past events, there is always mixed with the emotion 
 connected with them, a mental effort — conscious 
 or unconscious — of recalling the details of the 
 event; this in itself necessarily diminishes the 
 emotional element. 
 
 For homely illustration: What a difference 
 there would be in the intensity of the expression 
 ' '0, I am so hungry ! " caused by a present aggra- 
 vated feeling of hunger, and the words "0, I 
 was so hungry ! " when relating an incident of a 
 trip to Mexico which occurred several years ago. 
 The words relating to the past event might to-day 
 receive their coloring from a feeling entirely dif- 
 ferent from the original one; one might to-day 
 see the whole situation in a ludicrous light. 
 
 The effect of the influences that have worked 
 upon the speaker's life in the interim between the 
 
 70 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 past event and the present time and, also, the 
 present condition of the speaker, must always be 
 taken into consideration in the rendition of liter- 
 ature in the past tense. 
 
 In Browning's "Count Gismond," the tragic 
 incidents of her girlhood life which the Countess, 
 now a beloved and loving wife and happy mother, 
 narrates to her friend are largely colored by all 
 the joy that has been hers in the intervening 
 years and by her present happiness. To make 
 her words bitter or denunciatory, or to give even 
 60 much as a flavor of the theatric to this Dram- 
 atic Monologue — which is socially intimate in 
 nature — in its oral interpretation, would be to 
 miss its spirit. 
 
 The Countess, to-day in recounting the past, has, 
 in the main, radically different emotions from 
 those she had at the time of the actual occurrence 
 of the events which she recounts. True, the 
 author causes her to call up certain paralyzing 
 antecedent conditions so vividly that even her 
 circulation is affected again in hind as it originally 
 was; this is a fine dramatic touch, one easily 
 true to life ; nevertheless, the Countess does not 
 
 71 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 feel as intensely to-day about the past event as 
 £he felt when it was transpiring. 
 
 Violent shocks to the nervous system often 
 make such vital impression upon the "brain 
 stuff" that the mere mention of similar conditions 
 serves to produce results similar — though of less 
 intensity^to those originally produced by tne 
 shock. 
 
 In this poem, the calling up of the antecedent 
 condition indicated in the lines, 
 
 " ' Twas time I should present 
 The victor's crown, but, . . . there, 'twill last 
 
 No long time .... the old mist again 
 Blinds me as then it did. How vain ! 
 
 See ! Gismond's at the gate, in talk 
 With our two boys; I can proceed," 
 
 is but a touch — only a moment of the original in- 
 tense emotion; the sight of Gismond banishes 
 it, and conscious of her present joyous happi- 
 ness, she proceeds with her story. 
 
 Treatment of Different Persons and Tenses lllvs- 
 trated hy Gestures: In actual experience, if a 
 woman's child were in danger she might frantic- 
 ally clasp her hands and cry, ' 'My child ! Save 
 my child ! " In the drama — first person, present 
 
INTBRPRBTATlvn FORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 
 tense — an actress on the stage might do the same 
 thing. In reading the drama, an approximate 
 degree of emotional expression would be permiss- 
 ible. If the words were, ' ' I clasped my hands 
 and implored the men to save my child " — first 
 person, past tense — there would probably be a 
 sympathetic clasping of the hands, but the action 
 would not be as literal or with as much intensity 
 as when the words were written in the present 
 tense. If the words were, ' ' The woman clasped 
 her hands and implored the men to save her 
 child" — third person, past tense — there might be 
 a sympathetic movement of the hands, possibly 
 they might open outward in a half appealing ges- 
 ture, but they would not be clasped unless the 
 speaker was very much excited; then the emotion 
 migiht justify clasping them for a moment. 
 
 Or, suppose that the idea to be expressed in 
 different persons and tenses is that a young lady 
 puts her hat on and indignantly leaves the room. 
 The words in the first person, present tense, are, 
 "I shall go." An actress on the stage would act- 
 ually put on her hat and leave the room. An in- 
 terpreter giving the same words would show 
 
 73 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 his sympathy with the emotion by a tension 
 and an uplift of the body and, possibly, he 
 might half turn as if about to leave the room, 
 but there would be no movement suggestive 
 of putting on a hat. When the tense changes 
 and the words are, "I put my hat on and 
 indignantly said 'I shall go,'" only an emo- 
 tional response as the tensing of the muscles 
 would be permissible; unless one were telling of 
 this past experience in a playful mood, or ' 'pok- 
 ing fan at oneself " for the purpose of concealing 
 some deeper emotion, then one might act the 
 whole scene out or even exaggerate it. If the 
 incident were told in the third person, past tense, 
 as ' ' The young lady put her hat on and indig- 
 nantly said 'I shaU go,'" there would be still less 
 sympathetic gestural response, perhaps none at 
 all or, possibly, a slight movement suggestive of 
 her indignation. 
 
 This last illustration has been given quite ex- 
 plicitly for the purpose of making clear the fact 
 that it is the emotional intensity that primarily 
 governs the dramatic expression of ideas written in 
 much the same form. A child's life endangered is 
 
 74 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 a much greater emotional stimulus even when 
 written in third person, past tense, than is the 
 adjusting of one's wearing apparel written in first 
 person, present tense. 
 
 It must always be borne in mind that all com- 
 parisons of the dramatic significance of different 
 interpretative forms, as of different persons and 
 tenses, presuppose the same or similar inherent 
 degree of emotion, in the various forms com- 
 pared. 
 
 Change of Tenses: When an author changes the 
 tenses in a piece of literature, beginning in the 
 past tense and suddenly speaking in the first 
 tense, or vice versa, it denotes a strong emotion- 
 al impulse. So strong and compelling is the emo- 
 tion, in fact, that for the moment, in the speak- 
 er's imagination, it makes the past ths present. 
 
 Illustrations are found in "Self- Dependence, " 
 Matthew Arnold (Clark's Handbook). "A Eoyal 
 Princess," Christina G. Eossetti. "Spain's Last 
 Armada," William Eice (Clark's Handbook). 
 "Aux Italiens," Owen Meredith. 
 
 Direct Quotations: Literature presents no single 
 
 75 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURE 
 
 element that calls for greater discrimination in 
 oral rendition than does direct quotation, for no 
 single element has a wider range of possible 
 dramatic significance. Many readers, however, 
 seem not to appreciate the necessity of fine dis- 
 crimination here, for their platform work indi- 
 cates that quotation marks are to them the in- 
 fallible sign for impersonation. They imperson- 
 ate to the extent of making a "character part," 
 in reahty, of a single sentence of quotation even 
 though it be quite incidental to the narrative. 
 If words from a song are quoted, they sing them 
 (sometimes having a musical accompaniment) 
 albeit there is no more denaand — rational or ar- 
 tistic — for so doing than there would be for a 
 person in daily life to sing the words ' ' Home, 
 Sweet Home," in the remark to a friend, "I never 
 was more deeply moved than when I heard Patti 
 sing 'Home, Sweet Home.' " Such treatment is 
 another illustration parallel with the child's 
 ciphering ; again it is the vital question of rela- 
 tive values. 
 
 The importance of that which is quoted to the 
 whole piece of literature in which it occurs, is 
 
 76 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 one of the chief elements that determine how the 
 quoted words shall be rendered. 
 
 AVhen the importance of the quoted words is 
 but trifling, they should be "run in" much as 
 words indirectly quoted are. There would be, 
 virtually, no difference in the way that a reader 
 should say, "He said that he did not know it was 
 so late," and "He said, 'I did not know it was so 
 late.' " There are two other times when direct 
 quotations are treated in much the same manner: 
 
 (1) When the emotion expressed in the quoted 
 words is the same as that felt by the character 
 quoting them; as, " In a Balcony ," where Con- 
 stance says to Norbert : 
 
 "Just that the world may slip from under you — 
 Just that the world may cry, ' So much for him — 
 The man predestined to a heap of crowns : 
 There goes his chance of winning one, at least! ' " 
 
 (2) When the quoted words are non-emotional, 
 so to speak, as, "Dr. Hale began with some re- 
 flections upon the universality of Emersonian 
 ideas in society to-day. ' No ' matter to what 
 church you may go, ' he said, ' you will hear 
 Emerson from the pulpit.' " 
 
 77 
 
INTBRPRUTATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 When the importance of the quoted words is 
 marked, they must be so rendered as to be made 
 duly prominent. Sometimes, as in Dramatic 
 Narrative where the quoted conversation is the 
 principal feature of the story, the quoted words 
 should be treated much the same as the Drama 
 should be treated in a reading — not in act- 
 ing. This treatment might be called approxi- 
 mate impel sonation. The reader approximates 
 the manner in which the words were originally 
 said as nearly as the limitations imposed upon 
 him as a reader, allow. (See paragraph 1, 
 page 73). Quite a near approach to literal im- 
 personation would be allowable where the spirit 
 of the narration is chiefly revealed in the quoted 
 words, as in the "calls" in "Money Musk;" as, 
 
 " ' Three quarters round your partners swing! ' 
 'Across the set! ' The rafters ring." 
 
 Such instances, however, are rare and never 
 occur when the narrator is deeply moved. Barer 
 still, are the instances where the narrator, in a 
 playful mood, reproduces the original key, melo- 
 dy and quality. An exceptional instance of this 
 is found in implied indirect discourse in T. B. Al- 
 
 78 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 drich's poem, "In an Atelier" where the painter 
 indirectly repeats in a bantering way, the words 
 of his model, ' ' You do not understand at all? " 
 Between these two extremes of treating direct 
 quotations — treating them as indirect discourse, 
 and almost Hterally reproducing the original key, 
 melody, quality and other speech elements, and 
 sometimes gestural elements also — there are so 
 many intermediate ways of treatment that even 
 to touch upon them briefly would require a more 
 exhaustive analysis than it is the purpose of this 
 book to attempt; hence, only one principal one 
 will be mentioned : namely, where the original 
 melody of the quoted words is reproduced but 
 not the original key and quality. This occurs 
 chiefly in quotations within quotations, as in the 
 Drama and Monologue. Instances of this nature 
 occur where the speaker vividly recalls the time 
 when the words were first spoken and repeats 
 them under the influence of that memory, but at 
 the same time, is moved by a different present 
 emotion; as when Cassius says : 
 
 "But ere we could arrive the point proposed, 
 Caesar cried, ' Help me, Cassius, or I sink.' " 
 
 79 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 The emotion of Caesar was fear, that of Oassius 
 in recounting the event, contempt. 
 
 An adult repeating the words of a child, but 
 not imitating the child's voice because he is 
 swayed by his own emotions — not the child's — 
 is another illustration where the original melody 
 only would be reproduced, as in Eugene Field's 
 "Little Boy Blue," the heart-stricken father, 
 viewing the toys with which his little one used 
 to play, says : 
 
 " Time was when the little toy dog was new, 
 
 And the soldier was passing fair; 
 And that was the time that om- Little Boy Blue 
 
 Kissed them and put them there. 
 
 " ' Now, don't you go till I come,' he said, 
 
 ' And don't you make any noise ! ' 
 So, toddling off to his trundle-bed. 
 
 He dreamt of the pretty toys." 
 
 One further point should be mentioned in this 
 connection; namely, the attempted vocal imper- 
 sonation by men of women's voices, and vice 
 versa. When a woman attempts to reproduce a 
 man's voice, she has to sacrifice quality to 
 volume — and even then, she fails lamentably. 
 The failure is even more complete when a man 
 attempts to reproduce a woman's voice, for he 
 
 80 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 must needs use the falsetto quality than which 
 there is nothing more affected and ludicrous. 
 This most inartistic attempt at literalization is 
 none the less unjustifiable because certain read- 
 ers of recognized ability have failed to appreciate 
 its absurdity. For a man to present the heroine 
 of a great tragedy speaking in his unfeminine fal- 
 setto voice is unwittingly to do one of the "acts" 
 •of the burlesque stage. 
 
VI 
 
 TREATMENT OF INTERPRETATIVE FORMS 
 
 [Familiar pieces of literature have principally been chosea 
 for discussion of treatment in rendition ; such choice has been 
 made purposely, for we can more easily appreciate distinc- 
 tions made regarding a piece of literature which we know 
 well than one practically new to us. 
 
 References are frequently made to selections contained in 
 " Handbook of Best Selections," S. H. Clark (Charles Scrib- 
 ner's Sons, Publishers) ; the convenience of students of " The 
 Chautauqua School of Expression " has here been considered 
 as both books will be used as text-books in the school.] 
 
 IFFEEENT pieces of literature of th& 
 same general iriterpretatiTe form, aa 
 Dramatic Narrative, cannot be treated 
 in oral rendition as if they had been 
 cast in one mold. The emotional ele- 
 ment is always the dominating factor 
 in any oral interpretation, and emotion 
 is ever variable, never being exactly ahke in any 
 two instances no matter how similar those instances, 
 may seem to be. Because of this emotional fac- 
 
 82 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 tor, it is evident that after any piece of literature 
 has been assigned to its rational interpretative 
 class, there will always be the necessity on the 
 part of the student or interpreter for vivid dra- 
 matic imagination, and for an exercise of judgment 
 and artistic taste in determining just how it shaU 
 be treated as regards many essential points. 
 
 In many pieces of literature which are mainly 
 of one interpretative form, are to be found lines 
 and paragraphs of other interpretative forms. 
 Each different form in such cases would be 
 treated in oral rendition, according to its own 
 characteristics, colored by the atmosphere of the 
 main intei-pretative form. 
 
 In Tennyson's "In Mehaoriam," there are fre- 
 quent changes of several interpretative forms, 
 first one, then another, and then another, and 
 then back into one of the former ; but through all, 
 there is the same prevailing dominant atmosphere. 
 The interpretative form of the opening is Exalted 
 Address or Speech; it is impassioned supplication. 
 Divisions I. and II. are Contemplative Address; 
 The first verse of Division III. is Impersonal Ad- 
 (jress — an apostrophe — that easily runs into 
 
 83 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 Dramatic Narrative form in the next two verses, 
 and, then, back again into Contemplative Address 
 or Speech. 
 
 "While many examples of these changes from 
 one interpretative form to another in the same 
 piece of hterature — especially in poetry that is 
 subjective in character and at the same time 
 emotionally intense — are to be found, stiU as com- 
 pared with the whole body of hterature, they are 
 exceptions. 
 
 From an interpretative point of view, this inter- 
 blending of form is not as significant as, at first 
 thought, it might seem to be. This, because the 
 different interpretative forms that an author 
 uses in the expression of one general theme, are 
 almost invariably those forms that demand much 
 the same treatment in oral expression. For in- 
 stance, in the illustration cited from "In Me- 
 moriam ;" while the opening form. Exalted 
 Address is more intense than the following 
 form — Contemplative Address or Speech — and 
 then the breaking into apostrophe denotes a new 
 access of emotion, which is again somewhat less 
 in the Dramatic Narrative and Contemplative 
 
 84 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF UTERATURF, 
 
 Address forms that follow, all of the forms are 
 inherently closely allied to each other with the 
 exception of Dramatic Narrative. That form 
 might be far removed from the others, as it is 
 generally objective in nature; but here, it is 
 plainly subjective and naturally blends with 
 the general atmosphere of the poem, the quoted 
 words not being spoken by a person but by a 
 mental state personified, namely, Sorrow. 
 
 Moreover, the help to interpreters and to pub- 
 lic speakers to be gained by an appreciation of the 
 different interpretative forms of literature is not 
 dependent upon these fine distinctions between 
 forms that are closely akin but upon the recog- 
 nition of the general, fundamental distinctions in 
 interpretative forms, and in the method of treating 
 them in oral expression. Attention is called to- 
 these finer distinctions chiefly that the student 
 by being forewarned may be prepared to meet, 
 them in his studies for oral interpretation. 
 
 DIRECT PERSONAL ADDRESS 
 
 The dramatic relation of the speaker or inter- 
 preter in this interpretative form is a most natural^ 
 
 85 
 
INTURPRBTATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 simple one. It is the direct speech of one person 
 to others. AH literature — except humorous 
 speeches — that falls under any of the subdivisions 
 of this head, should be characterized in rendition 
 or dehvery by earnest directness. The purpose of 
 direct personal address is to interest, to inform, 
 to persuade, to convince, to incite, or to uplift. 
 The dominant thought or emotion of the litera- 
 ture wOl, of course, determine the general spirit 
 ■of the rendition. The several illustrations given 
 under the sub-heads have quite different dom- 
 inant emotions. 
 
 Frequently, other interpretative forms are in- 
 troduced in Direct Personal Address ; a story 
 may be told — Dramatic Narrative— an apostrophe 
 made to some person, element, or virtue, possibly 
 a short dialogue may be given, and, often, de- 
 scription of scenery, customs, actions, people is 
 given. If the story, apostrophe or dialogue is in- 
 troduced for comedy effect, or for the purpose of 
 arousing patriotism, a sense of moral justice, or 
 religious fervor, greater freedom would be permis- 
 sible in their expression than under other con- 
 
 86 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURE 
 
 difcions. Description may be made vital and 
 thrilling, but great care must be exercised by the 
 speakers who are easily aroused emotionally, who 
 have "great freedom" on the platform and in the 
 pulpit, not to make it theatric, spectacular. De- 
 scription, no matter how vivid, is description of 
 the things, actions, people. (See page 59, 
 Descriptive Gestures.) Interpreters should re- 
 spect this natural limitation and not treat it as if 
 it were the things, action, people, themselves. 
 
 Lecture 
 
 Mark Twain is much more than a humorist. 
 His "Innocents Abroad" is one of the best 
 books of travel that I know of, even with 
 the humor left out. While his "Eoughing 
 It" and "Life on the Mississippi" are such pic- 
 tures of phases of early pioneer life in this coun- 
 try as no one else has been able to give us, ' 'Tom 
 Sawyer" is the best boy's book that ever was 
 written. And the great English critic, Mr. 
 Andrew Lang, thinks that while we are waiting 
 for some one to write the great American novel, 
 Mark Twain has already written it, and that its 
 name is ' 'Huckleberry Finn. " Purely as a novel, 
 he places it among the highest. 
 
 Knowing that Mark Twain's boyhood was spent 
 in Hannibal, Missouri, which is the scene of 
 
 87 
 
INTERPRETATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 "Tom Sawyer," I asked him one day if he was 
 born there. With his purely natural but comical 
 drawl he replied: ' 'No — o, I wasn't bom there ; 
 I was born near Pa-a-ris (Missouri); but when I 
 was fifteen months old I went to Hannibal with 
 my father and mother, and Uked it so well that 
 I concluded to make that my home. " * * * * 
 
 I heard him lecture in the Grass Valley, Cal- 
 ifornia, in 1866. It was a wonderful success. I 
 remember how he described the horse he rode. 
 He said he had a great many fine points; and 
 droUy added, "I hung my hat on one of them." 
 He gave a really magnificent description of an 
 eruption of Mauna Loa, and then dropped his 
 audience from the sublime to the ridiculous, by 
 remarking in a tone of greatest relief, — "I'm 
 glad I've got that mountain off my mind." 
 
 Soon after my return to the east his first book 
 was published, called "The Celebrated Jumping 
 Frog of Calaveras County. " The dedication of 
 the book is worth quoting: "To John Smith 
 whom I have often met in my travels about the 
 world. I believe it is the custom for a person to 
 whom a book is dedicated to buy a copy. If this 
 custom shall be followed in the present instance, 
 a princely affluence is about to burst upon the 
 author." 
 
 After this came his "Innocents Abroad" 
 and the world recognized one of the greatest 
 laughter-creators of all time. 
 
 From "American Wit and Humor" — Miaot Judson 
 Savage. 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 This extract is humorous in spirit and col- 
 loquial in style. In rendition it should be treated 
 much like spirited conversation — a conversation 
 all on one side. 
 
 The words quoted from Mr. Twain re- 
 garding the place of his birth are given, of course, 
 for their humor; because this is their sole purpose, 
 they might be given in a different key from the 
 speaker's natural one and with a slowness of 
 enunciation suggestive of a ' 'drawl" but it would 
 savor of the show-off spirit of young children 
 who have just mastered some ne^v feat, to name 
 the characteristic drawl and then imitate it. If 
 the speaker desired to give a bit of literal imper- 
 sonation — for comedy effect — in such an instance 
 as this, he should do so without personal com- 
 ment on his own work. To say ' 'With his purely 
 natural but comical drawl" and then give it 
 would be like saying to the audience, ' 'See how 
 funny I am!" Moreover, if the speaker should 
 here impersonate Mr. Twain, to be consistent, he 
 would also have to do so in the words quoted 
 about the horse and the mountain. Anything 
 like impersonation on those words would be most 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 untrue to life; a person actually telling of such 
 an incident would say the words almost as if 
 they were his own. (See page 77.) 
 
 Some speakers would be tempted by the quo- 
 ted dedication of the book, "To John Smith" and 
 so on, to literalize — to speak as if slowly reading 
 from the printed page and, possibly, to indicate 
 the lines in the book by running the finger of 
 one hand along the palm of the other. Such 
 literalization of so simple and unemotional a fact 
 is never done in real life and, therefore, should 
 not be done even on the stage that "holds the 
 mirror up to nature," much less should it be 
 done on the platform where the office of the 
 reader or speaker is to narrate, to suggest inci- 
 dents, not to actualize them. 
 
 Selections similar to this are excellent practice 
 for developing simplicity coupled with ahveness 
 of expression. These qualities are the great need 
 of those speakers and readers who are either dull 
 and monotonous, or vehement and over-energetic 
 in the rendition of literature whose interpretative 
 form is Direct Personal Address. 
 
 go 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 Political Speech : 
 
 Fellow Irishmen — It would be the extreme of 
 aflfectation in me to suggest that I have not some 
 claim to be the leader of this majestic meeting. 
 It would be worse than affectation; it would be 
 drivelling folly, if I were not to feel the awful 
 responsibility to my country and my Creator 
 which the part I have taken in this mighty 
 movement imposes on me. Yes; I feel the tre- 
 mendous nature of that responsibility. * * * * 
 
 I here protest, in the name of my country and 
 in the name of my God, against the unfotmded 
 and unjust Union. My proposition to Ireland is 
 that the Union is not binding on her people. It 
 is void in conscience and in principle, and as a 
 matter of constitutional law I attest these 
 facts. Yes, I attest by everything that is sacred, 
 without being profane, the truth of my asser- 
 tions. * * * 
 
 Are we tamely to stand by and allow our dear- 
 est interests to be trampled upon ? Are we not 
 to ask for redress ? Yes, we will ask for that 
 which alone will give us redress — a parliament 
 of our own. And you wiU have it, too, if you are 
 quiet and orderly, and join with me in my present 
 struggle. [Loud cheers.] Your cheers will be 
 conveyed to England. Yes, the majority of this 
 mighty multitude will be taken there. * * * 
 I advise you to obey the law until you have the 
 word of your beloved Queen to tell you that you 
 shall have a Parliament of your own. [Cheers 
 and loud cries of "80 we will .'"] The Queen 
 
 91 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITER ATURB 
 
 — Qod bless her ! — will yet tell you that you shall 
 have a legislature of your own — three cheers for 
 the Queen! [Immense cheering.] 
 
 On the 2d of January last I called this Eepeal 
 year, and I was laughed at for doing so. Are 
 they laughing now? No : it is now my turn to 
 laugh ; and I will now say that in twelve months 
 more we shall have our Parliament again on Col- 
 lege Green. And if we have our Parliament again 
 in Dublin, is there, I would ask, a coward amongst 
 you who would not rather die than allow it to be 
 taken away by an Act of Union? [Loud cries of 
 "J!fo one would ever submit to it .'" ^^We'd rather 
 die!" etc.] To the last man. [Cries of '■'■To the 
 last man .'"] Let every man who would not 
 allow the Act of Union to pass hold up his hand. 
 [An im,mense forest of hands was shown.] When 
 the Irish Parliament is again assembled, I wiU defy 
 any power on earth to take it from us again. 
 Are you all ready to obey me in the course of 
 conduct which I have pointed out to you? [Cries 
 of '■'■Yes, yes!"] When I dismiss you to-day, will 
 you not disperse and go peaceably to your homes 
 — [" yes, yes, we will .'"] — every man, woman, and 
 child? — in the same tranquil manner as you have 
 assembled? ["Yes, yes!"] But if I want you 
 again to-morrow, will you not come to Tara HiU? 
 [''Yes, yes!"] Eemember, Iwill lead you into no 
 peril. * * * 
 
 I believe I am now in a position to announce 
 to you that in twelve months more we shall not 
 be without having an Hurrah ! for the Parlia- 
 
 92 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 ment on College G-reen ! [Immense cheering. ] Your 
 shouts are almost enough to call to life those who 
 rest in the grave. * * * 
 
 Our movement is the admiration of the world, 
 for no other country can show so much force 
 with so much propriety of conduct. No other 
 country can show a people assembled for the 
 highest national purposes that can actuate a man; 
 can show hundreds of thousands able in strength 
 to carry any battle that ever was fought, and yet 
 separating with the tranquillity of schoolboys. 
 You have stood by me long — stand by me a little 
 longer, and Ireland will again be a nation. 
 
 Extracts from "The Repeal of the Union"— Daniel 
 O'Connell. 
 
 The dominant spirit here is denunciatory, in- 
 citing, vehement; the bodily response would be 
 correspondingly energetic. Gestures, direct, 
 forceful, emphatic, would here be true emo- 
 tionally manifestive gestures. The same ges- 
 tures if used by a speaker declaring the mercy 
 and loving kindness of our Heavenly Father 
 would be antithetical to, instead of in corres- 
 pondence with, the spirit of the words; 
 they would be se(/'-manif estive gestures revealing 
 the speaker's dominant desire — the desire to im- 
 press — rather than his emotional sympathy with 
 the words uttered. 
 
 93 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 The enthusiasm of the auditors in the above 
 address as indicated by their frequent interrup- 
 tions would, of itself, cause an increase of passion- 
 ate expression in the speaker; and yet, the closing 
 paragraph is temperate, persuasive, is an eloquent 
 logical appeal for continued support. 
 
 Sermon: 
 
 * * * * Upon thousands of hearts great 
 sorrows and anxieties have rested, but not on 
 one such, and in such measure, as upon that 
 simple, truthful, noble soul, our faithful and 
 sainted Lincoln. * * * 
 
 At last the watcher beheld the gray dawn for 
 the country. The mountains began to give forth 
 their forms from out the darkness; and the 
 East came rushing toward us with arms full of 
 joy for all our sorrows. Then it was for him to 
 be glad exceedingly, that had sorrowed immeas- 
 urably. Peace could bring to no other heart such 
 joy, such rest, such honor, such trust, such grat- 
 itude. But he looked upon it as Moses looked 
 upon the promised land. Then the wail of a 
 nation proclaimed that he had gone from among 
 us. Not thine the sorrow, but ours, sainted soul. 
 Thou hast indeed entered the promised land, 
 while we areyetonhe march. To us remains 
 the rocking of the deep, the storm upon the land, 
 days of duty and nights of watching, but thou 
 art sphered high above all darkness and fear, be- 
 
 94 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 yond all sorrow and weariness. Rest, weary 
 heart! Eejoice exceedingly, thou that hast suffer- 
 ed enough! * * * * Thy name, an everlasting 
 name in heaven, shall flourish in fragrance and 
 beauty as long as men shall last upon the earth, 
 or hearts remain, to revere truth, fidelity, and 
 goodness. 
 
 Never did two such orbs of experience meet in 
 one hemisphere, as the joy and the sorrow of the 
 same week in this land. The joy was as sudden 
 as if no man had expected it, and as entrancing 
 as if it had fallen a sphere from heaven. 
 
 In one hour joy lay without a pulse, without 
 a gleam, or breath. A sorrow came that swept 
 through the land as huge storms sweep through 
 the forest. Did ever so many hearts, in so brief 
 a time, touch two such boimdless feehngs? It 
 was the uttermost of joy; it was the uttermost 
 of sorrow— noon and midnight, without a space 
 between. 
 
 The blow brought not a sharp pang. It was 
 so terrible that at first it stunned sensibility. 
 Citizens were like men awakened at midnight 
 by an earthquake, and bewildered to find every- 
 thing that they were accustomed to trust waver- 
 ing and falling. The very earth was no longer 
 solid. The first feeling was the least. Men 
 waited to get straight to feel. They wandered 
 in the streets as if groping after some impending 
 dread, or undeveloped sorrow, or some one to tell 
 them what ailed them. They met each other as 
 if each would ask the other, ' 'Am I awake, or 
 
 95 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 do I dream?" There was a piteous helplessness. 
 Strong men bowed down and wept. 
 
 * * * Men were bereaved, and walked for days as 
 if a corpse lay unburied in their dwellings. There 
 was nothing else tc think of. They could speak 
 of nothing but that ; and yet, of that they could 
 speak only falteringly. All business was laid 
 aside. Pleasure forgot to smile. The city for 
 nearly a week ceased to roar. The great 
 Leviathan lay down, and was still. Even avarice 
 stood still, and greed was strangely moved to 
 generous sympathy and universal sorrow. Eear 
 to his name monuments, found charitable insti- 
 tutions, and write his name above their lintels; 
 but no monument will ever equal the universal, 
 spontaneous, and sublime sorrow that in a mo- 
 ment swept down lines and parties, and covered 
 up animosities, and in an hour brought a divided 
 people into unity of grief and indivisible fellow- 
 ship of anguish. * * * * 
 
 Four years ago, O Illinois, we took from 
 your midst an untried man, and from among 
 the people. We return him to you a mighty 
 conqueror. Not thine any more, but the nation's; 
 not ours, but the world's. Grive him place, ye 
 prairies! * * * Ye winds that move over 
 the mighty places of the west, chant requiem! 
 Ye people, behold a martyr whose blood, as so 
 many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for 
 law, for liberty. 
 
 From "The Martyr President," by Henry Ward 
 Beecher. 
 
 96 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 This extract from the sermon preached April 
 15, 1865, from the text found in Deut. 34:1-5, 
 affords an illustration of impassioned Direct Per- 
 sonal Address of a nature at once exalted, per- 
 sonal and unirersal. 
 
 In rendition it requires a dignified, impressive 
 yet simply genuine manner; anything bordering 
 on grandiloquence would be offensive. The apos- 
 trophe commencing "Not thine the sorrow, but 
 ours, sainted soul," and ending "to revere truth, 
 fidelity, and goodness," is Impersonal Address 
 of the most elevated order and should be treated 
 accordingly. The quoted words ' 'Am I awake, 
 or do I dream?" would be given as if the speaker 
 himself were asking the question, being deeply 
 moved by a sense of "piteous helplessness." 
 The last paragraph begins with an apostrophe to 
 Lincoln's birth-place, Illinois, and ends in one to 
 "Ye people" — not the people constituting the 
 speaker's immediate hearers but all the people of 
 the world. 
 
 The emotion here is so profound, so great in 
 its reach, that it requires large collateral think- 
 
 97 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OF UTBRATURB 
 
 ing on the part of the interpreter to approximate- 
 it in expression. For this reason, selections of 
 this order are especially good practice for those 
 readers and speakers who in their desire ' 'to be 
 natural" are inclined to render all Direct Personal 
 Address and Plain Narrative in a somewhat hur- 
 ried, colorless manner. What Edgar Allan Poe 
 says of writers is equally true of interpreters:: 
 "The author who should be upon all occa- 
 sions ' merely quiet ' must necessarily upon 
 many occasions, be simply siUy or stupid, and 
 has no more right to be considered 'easy' or 
 'natural' than a Cockney exquisite, or than the 
 Sleeping Beauty in the waxworks. " 
 
 Oration: 
 
 Socrates came speaking, as did Plato and Paul, 
 as did the world's Savior; and, so long as man re- 
 mains man, preaching will remain, not as a 
 luxury, but as the necessity of man's existence. 
 So far from books doing away with the influence 
 of the voice, they seem rather to increase it. In 
 ages when there were no books, men sat sUent in 
 the cell or were dumb by the hearthstone. Now 
 that a new book is published, like "The Memoirs 
 of Tennyson," or "Equality" by Bellamy, or- 
 "The Christian," by Oaine, these books, instead 
 of ending conversation upon the themes in ques- 
 
 98 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 tion, seem rather to open the flood-gates of speech, 
 so that a thousand readers break forth into dis- 
 cussion who before were dumb. 
 
 So far as moral truth is concerned, the truth is 
 never the full truth until it is organized into the 
 personality, and flashes in the eye or thriUs in 
 the voice, or glows in the reason, or guidea 
 through sound judgment. 
 
 The genius of preaching is truth in personality. 
 Mighty is the written word of God, but the word 
 never conquered until it was made flesh. 
 Truth in the book is crippled. Truth in the 
 intellectual system is a skeleton. Truth in per- 
 sonahty is hf e and power. Always the printed 
 philosophy is less than the speaking philosopher. 
 
 Savonarola's arguments were brought to- 
 gether in a solid chain of logic but it has been 
 said that his flaming heart made the chain of 
 logic to be "chain lightning." The printed truth 
 cuts hke a sharp edge, the spoken truth burns as 
 well as cuts. Men have indeed been redeemed 
 by the truth in black ink on white paper, but the 
 truth quadruples its force when it is bound up in 
 nerves, mucles and sinews. 
 
 From "The Pulpit in Modern Life" by Dr. Newell 
 D wight Hillis. 
 
 This extract from Dr. Hillis' oration is less 
 colloquial, less impassioned, less elevated, than, 
 are the three preceding extracts, respectively. 
 Here is given the earnest, dispassionate conclus- 
 
 99 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 ions of a man of research uninfluenced by preju- 
 dice or feeling. 
 
 There is no change from the one interpretative 
 form. The only quotations "made flesh" and 
 ' ' chain lightning" are too brief to deserve the 
 name; in rendition these would be given as the 
 the speaker's own thought. This order of ora- 
 tion — or address — especially requires the speaker 
 to be enthused with the "earnestness of convic- 
 tion." Nothing save absolute sincerity of treat- 
 ment will suflBce. If given in a half-hearted, 
 indifferent way, the attention of the audience 
 would not be held; if given in the so-called ora- 
 torical style — orotund voice and self -presenting 
 gestures — the attention of the audience would be 
 chiefly focussed on the "speaker's dehvery" in- 
 stead of on the message dehvered. 
 
 Direct Personal Address of this order makes a 
 severe test upon the speaker's or reader's abiUty 
 ' 'to hold an audience ; " therefore, such selections 
 — that are not dramatic, that appeal to the intel- 
 lect rather than to the emotions — are good prac- 
 tice for any one. They necessitate an unremit- 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE PORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 ting interest on the part of the speaker in what 
 he is saying; never for a moment can he afford 
 to ' 'let down" for there is no story, no emotional 
 impulse, that may carry the address to a seem- 
 ingly successful issue despite the speaker's lack 
 of vividness as is often the case when the litera- 
 ture is more dramatic and attention-holding. 
 
 What has been said of the above extract ap- 
 plies to the rendition of most essays, and to 
 addresses, and to poetry of a philosophical or 
 thoughtful nature; addresses of a more impas- 
 sioned order would be treated, according to their 
 dominant thought or emotion, similarly to one of 
 the foregoing extracts under Direct Personal Ad- 
 dress. 
 
 An equally severe test is made upon the speak- 
 er's ability ' 'to hold an audience" in the rendi- 
 tion of poetry philosophical in its nature whose 
 interpretative form is Direct Personal Address, 
 as the subjoined verses from "The Buried Life." 
 "When the interpretative form of poetry is Dra- 
 matic Narrative the attention of the audience is 
 more easily captured, even if the main thought 
 be equally philosophical. 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 Numerous and more extended illustrations of 
 all the various sub-divisions under this head, are 
 to be found in "Modem Eloquence," Vols. I-XV. 
 
 Light flows our war of mocking words ; and yet. 
 
 Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet ! 
 
 I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll. 
 
 Yes, yes, we know that we can jest, 
 
 We know, we know that w^e can smile ! 
 
 But there's something in this breast. 
 
 To which thy light words bring no rest, 
 
 And thy gay smiles no anodyne; 
 
 Give me thy hand, and hush awhile. 
 
 And turn those limpid eyes on mine, 
 
 And let me read there, love ! thy inmost soul. 
 
 Alas ! is even love too weak 
 
 To imlock the heart, and let it speak? 
 
 Are even lovers powerless to reveal 
 
 To one another what indeed they feel? 
 
 I knew the mass of men concealed 
 
 Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed 
 
 They would by other men be met 
 
 With blank indifference, or with blame reproved; 
 
 I knew they lived and moved 
 
 Tricked in disguises, alien to the rest 
 
 Of men, and alien to themselves — and yet 
 
 The same heart beats in every human breast ! 
 
 But we, my love ! doth a like spell benumb 
 Our hearts, our voices ? must we too be dumb? 
 Ah ! well for us, if even we, 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OP LITER ATURB 
 
 Even for a moment, can get free 
 Our heart, and have our lips unchained; 
 For that which seals themhathbeendeep-ordained! 
 
 — Matthew Arnold. 
 
 Exclamatory and Imperative Forms: 
 
 Stand ! the ground's your own, my braves ! 
 Will ye give it up to slaves ? 
 
 ***** 
 
 Fear ye foes who kill for hire ? 
 Will ye to your homes retire ? 
 Look behind you ! they're a-fire ! 
 
 And, before you, see 
 
 — From Warren's Address at Bunker Hill— Pierpont. 
 
 This extract is impassioned Direct Personal 
 Address whose purpose is to incite. In no other 
 interpretative form of literature would greater 
 license in expression by voice and by gesture be 
 allowed than here. But there must be no rant- 
 ing, for while the speaker's passion is intense, he 
 is master of it; neither must there be any de- 
 scriptive gestures for in intensely passionate 
 states there is never precision or definiteness of 
 bodily movements. To make descriptive gestures 
 of location on the words '-Look behind you!" 
 "And, before you, see " would be to detract 
 
 103 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 greatly from the spirit of address. Tense, strong 
 bodily response should characterize the entire ad- 
 dress and such sympathetic and emotionally- 
 manifestive gestures as come spontaneously. 
 
 [When gestures are spoken of as coming spon- 
 taneously or because of the emotional stimulus, 
 it is always presupposed that the channels of ex- 
 pression in the reader's or speaker's body have 
 been freed and made ready for such response 
 by due psycho-physical training; training that 
 establishes a ready co-ordination between the 
 brain and the body.] 
 
 Hurrah ! the foes are moving ! Hark to the 
 mingled din 
 
 Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drmn, and 
 roaring culverin ! 
 
 The fiery duke is pricking fast across Saint An- 
 dre's plain. 
 
 With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and 
 Almayne. 
 
 — Thomas B. Macaulay 
 
 Direct Personal Address that commences with 
 an exclamatory word or phrase implies strong 
 emotion from the beginning. Sometimes the 
 first word is climacteric, as ' ' Hurrah ! " 
 
 104 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 
 Welcome, welcome, with one voice ! 
 In your welfare we rejoice, 
 Sons and brothers that have sent, 
 From isle and cape and continent. 
 Produce of your field and flood. 
 Mount and mine and primal wood ; 
 Works of subtle brain and hand. 
 And splendours of the morning land. 
 Gifts from every British zone; 
 Britons, hold your own { 
 
 — Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 Up, up ! my friend, and quit your books, 
 
 Or surely you'U grow double; 
 Up, up! my friend, and clear your looks; 
 
 Why all this toil and trouble ? 
 The sun, above the mountain's head, 
 
 A freshening lustre mellow 
 Through all the long green fields has spread. 
 
 His first sweet evening yellow. 
 Books ! 't is a dull and endless strife; 
 
 Come, hear the woodland linnet ; 
 How sweet his music ! on my life, 
 
 There's more of wisdom in it. 
 
 — William Wordsworth, 
 
 A song, boys, a song ! 
 Life is young yet, 
 Love has tongue yet ; 
 Why should Life and Love go wrong ? 
 Come, boys, a song ! 
 
 A song, boys, a song ! 
 Life's at flush still, 
 
 105 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 Love's ablush still ; 
 
 What though cares and curses throng ? 
 Oome, boys, a song ! 
 
 A song, boys, a song ! 
 Life is gray now, 
 Love's away now, 
 We are left to limp along ; 
 StUl, boys, a song ! 
 
 A song, boys, a song ! 
 Death is here soon. 
 Death wiU. cheer soon, 
 Death is nigh, and Love Is strong ; 
 So, boys, a song ! 
 
 —"A Song of Life."*— Richard Burton. 
 
 Bury the Great Duke 
 
 With an empire's lamentation. 
 Let us bury the Great Duke 
 
 To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, 
 Mourning when their leaders fall. 
 Warriors carry the warrior's paU, 
 And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 
 
 — Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 The whole city, the whole country, is the au- 
 dience addressed in this last illustration of Direct 
 Personal Address. Only themes that are ma- 
 jestic, sublime, awe-inspiring, and of an uni- 
 
 * From "Dumb in June." By permission of the author and 
 the publishers, Lothrop Publishing Company. 
 
 io6 
 
INTERPRETATIVB FORMS OP LITER ATURB 
 
 versal spirit, call for the largeness of thought that 
 this selection does. In rendition the treatment 
 must be correspondingly elevated : it should be 
 the farthest remove possible from the colloquial 
 styler The general order of emotion in such lit- 
 erature incites only sympathetic gestures as bod- 
 ily responses; it is too forceful to permit of any 
 Uteralizing by descriptive gesture, and too uni- 
 versal in its reach to permit of emotionally-man- 
 ifestive gestures — gestures that directly reveai 
 the emotional state of the speaker. 
 
 Further examples of Direct Personal Address 
 are : 
 
 Proverbs — where many paragraphs begin with 
 "My son." 
 
 "Hamlet's Instruction to the Players." 
 
 Mark Antony's speech in "Julius Osesar," 
 commencing, "Friends, Eomans, Countrymen." 
 
 King Henry's address to his army in ' 'King 
 Henry the Fifth," commencing "Once more unto 
 the breach, dear friends." 
 
 "My Star," — Eobert Browning. 
 
 "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," — Elizabeth 
 Barrett Browning. 
 
 "Apple Blossoms," — William Wesley Martin 
 (Clark's Handbook). 
 
 "Tears," — Clarence N. Ousley (Clark's Hand- 
 book). 
 
 107 
 
INfERPRBTATiVB FORMS OP IITBRATURB 
 
 "Meil of DartnAbtith,"— Eichard Hovey. 
 "Up at a Villa-^Down in the City," — Eobert 
 Browning. 
 
 "The Third of B'ebruary, "—Alfred Tennyson. 
 "The Apology," — Ealph Waldo Emerson. 
 "Give All to Love," — Ealph Waldo Emerson. 
 "Eobin Hood,"— John Keats. 
 
 IMPERSONAL ADDRESS 
 
 The dramatic relation of the speaker or inter- 
 preter to the audience in this interpretative form 
 is one that seldom exists in actual hfe. When 
 emotions similar to those that are found in the 
 literature classified under this head, stir a 
 person in actual life, he talks directly out of his 
 own heart because the stress of the emotion for- 
 ces expression, but he does not address himself 
 to any person ; rather, he addresses the element, 
 or object — objective or subjective as it may be^— 
 to which through his emotion he is sympathetic- 
 ally related. It is seldom that any auditor 
 would be present when a person was moved to 
 Impersonal Address, for the emotions that ex- 
 press themselves through this form are not such 
 as would naturally prevail when one was com- 
 panioned; they are, rather, the feelings that 
 
 io8 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OF IITURATURH 
 
 might possess and master one when alone with 
 Nature and under the spell of her charm and 
 mys.tery. The chief exception to this is when a 
 pubhc speaker turns aside from his general re- 
 marks to apostrophize an honored guest. 
 
 Infrequent as is Impersonal Address in ordin- 
 ary daily Ufe, literature gives ample evidence 
 that writers emotionally stimulated over some 
 theme — an idea, association, element, a condition, 
 place, virtue, or over the contemplation of na- 
 ture, easily brea,k into Impersonal Address; their 
 strong emotion causes them to personify that 
 which arouses it. The same is true with public 
 speakers endowed with the gift of eloquence. 
 
 Whenever a speaker breaks away from the 
 natural relation that exists between the audience 
 and hinaself in Direct Persor!.al Address ?ind ex- 
 presses himself in Impersonal Address, he be- 
 comes in a degree unrelated to his audience, for, 
 in so doing , he seems mentally to turn away 
 from his auditors and to be conscious chiefly of 
 that to which he speaks, even though it be only 
 an abstraction, as virtue. The same, of course, is 
 true in the case of the reader who interprets lit- 
 
 109 
 
TNTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 erature written in the interpretative form of Im- 
 personal Address. Great discrimination and 
 care are required in the rendition of Impersonal 
 Address that it may ring true. Freedom from 
 all trace of affectation and consciousness of self, 
 plus a large experience in the interpreter's own 
 life which shall furnish the materials for the 
 dramatic imagination to work with, alone can 
 give the stamp of genuineness to the rendition of 
 much of the literature of this interpretative form. 
 Especially is this true of the apostrophe. 
 
 Because the dramatic relation of the reader to 
 the audience here is, at best, a somewhat forced 
 one, it is well to give selections of this character 
 from the reading desk. The desk acts as a safe- 
 guard against too dramatic action; it seems to 
 place the personality of the interpreter farther 
 in the background than it is when he stands, un- 
 guarded, directly before the audience. 
 
 The Apostrophe : 
 
 ye loud waves ! and ye forests, high ! 
 
 And ye clouds that far above me soared ! 
 Thou rising sun ! thou blue rejoicing sky ! 
 
 Yea, everything that is and wiU be free ! 
 
INTERPRETATIVn FORMS OF UTERATURB 
 
 Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, 
 With what deep worship I have still adored 
 The spirit of divinest hberty ! 
 
 — Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 
 
 It seems hke "elucidating the obvious" to state 
 that there should be no descriptive gestures of lo- 
 cation in the rendition of these lines. To make 
 such would be to make a burlesque of the presenta- 
 tion of Coleridge's noble thought. On the other 
 hand, such thoughts wiU not permit of passivity of 
 bodily expression in the interpreter. There are 
 no "dead words" in an apostrophe, aU are alive 
 and require corresponding aliveness in the inter- 
 preter's expression — voice and body. 
 
 BuUd thee more stately mansions, O my soul. 
 As the swift seasons roU ! 
 Leave thy low- vaulted past ! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last. 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast 
 TiU thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown sheU by life's unresting 
 sea ! — Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again ! 
 
 I hold to you the hands you first beheld, 
 
 To show they stiU are free. Methinks I hear 
 
 A spirit in your echoes answer me. 
 
 And bid your tenant welcome home again ! 
 
 — Sheridan Knowles. 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 Blow winds, and crack your cheeks ! rage ! blow ! 
 
 Yon cataracts and hurricanes, spout 
 
 TiU you have drenched our steeples, drown'd the 
 
 cocks ! 
 You sulphurous and thought-executing fires. 
 Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts. 
 Singe my white head ! And thou, all-shaking 
 
 thunder. 
 Strike flat the thick rotundity of the world ! 
 Crack Nature's moulds, all germens spUl at once, 
 That make ungrateful man ! 
 
 — King Lear. 
 
 The extract from "King Lear" is an example 
 of uncontrolled passion. In the rendition of 
 lines where the speaker is clearly mastered by his 
 passion, unnecessary vocal vehemence (rant) and 
 even frenzied, gestural expression would be true 
 to one's natural expression xnvdL&i: such conditions; 
 it is a question of taste how nearly in such cases, 
 one shaU approximate the actual in rendition. 
 
 Illustrations of prolonged apostrophes are : 
 Byron's apostrophe to the ocean in ' 'Childe Har- 
 old," which continues through six stanzas ; and 
 "The Waltz," by Byron. 
 
 Lyrics under Impersonal Address: 
 
 Many lyrics have much the same rhetorical 
 form as the apostrophe, but the emotions pervad- 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURE 
 
 ing them are those that are more common ip 
 general experience than are those that call for 
 apostrophic expression; therefore, su,ch lyrics 
 are, in one sense, less difficult than the apostrophe 
 to render with fidelity to life. Another differ- 
 ence between the two forms is that many of the 
 lyrics and some other poems under this head are 
 contemplative, subjective in nature, whereas the 
 apostrophe is usually extremely objective. Al- 
 though lyrics are usually less difficult for the 
 reader to gain a dramatic conception of than is 
 the apostrophe, they are as a class ' 'hard read- 
 ing." Even though a story may be told, the 
 lyrical element — the rhythm — must be preserved. 
 To make it colloquial would be to make it un- 
 lyrical; and yet, the thought, the emotional 
 element, must not be sacrificed to the movement. 
 Intense emotion, lyrically expressed, requires 
 very dehcate treatment. It is only by abandon- 
 ing himself to vital dramatic thinking and f eehng 
 that a reader can hope to touch the spirit of the 
 Jyric. Soul states are here revealed. Anything 
 that suggests elocutionizing or literalizing the 
 
 113 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 words by descriptive gesture, is, without any- 
 possible warrant here. 
 
 Some of the worst elocutionary sins are com- 
 mitted in the rendition of the lyric. The writer 
 has had the misfortune several times to hear 
 Tennyson's "Break, Break, Break" — which is a 
 subjective moan, as it were, of a desolated heart — 
 given in a declamatory theatric manner — agony 
 spectacularized. And who has not seen a "re- 
 citer" indicate by gesture, a bugle held to the 
 lips and heard him give prolonged intonations 
 on the words, "Blow, bugle, blow ! " in Tenny- 
 son's ' 'Bugle Song ? " 
 
 Again those six lines that so wonderfully, so 
 simply, state the unsolvable problem of the uni- 
 verse, — 
 
 ' 'Flower in the crannied waU, 
 
 I pluck you out of the crannies ; — 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 Little flower ; — but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and aU in aU, 
 I should know what God and man is. " 
 
 — Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 were recently recited by a teacher of hterature 
 in a preparatory school in the following manner: 
 
 114 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 The reciter seemingly held the little flower in her 
 hand and talked not to the audience, not as if 
 questioning in her own mind, but tenderly to it 
 as a mother might talk to a baby in her arms. 
 The purpose of the recital — which was accom- 
 phshed — seemed to be to let the audience know 
 that the speaker, in imagination, had a flower in 
 her hand. 
 
 When the question was put to her, ' ' If you 
 hold the flower in your hand, why do you not 
 also pluck it (by gesture) from the crannied 
 wall?" she replied, "Because, that would be 
 too literal ; besides, the flower has already 
 been plucked and is now held in the speaker's 
 hand." Upon having her attention called to 
 the tense of the verbs in the different lines, 
 she was obliged to admit that the first line 
 indicates that the flower is still growing in 
 the wall, the second, that it is now (present 
 tense) plucked, and that not until the third line 
 is it held in the hand. 
 
 This is but another illustration of commencing 
 to cipher at the mention of figures, regardless. 
 
 In the rendition of such lines, the desk should 
 
 115 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 be used. The reader must endeavor by his own 
 intense, impersonal expression of voice and face 
 (particularly by that certain indescribable expres- 
 sion of the eyes which comes only when the soul 
 seems to look out from eyes that gaze intently 
 but see not, objectively) to make the hearers be- 
 come unconscious of his personality, and to think 
 of the deep questioning of the poet's mind. 
 
 All prolonged gestures, such as the holding of 
 the flower, make the reader's personahty especially 
 prominent; this, because being held, "posed," 
 and unusual — in that they are not such as occur 
 in spontaneous expression — they inevitably be- 
 come like an obtrusive picture thrust before the 
 vision to distract the attention when the mind 
 desires to be otherwise engaged. 
 
 Further examples of this interpretative form 
 are : 
 
 "Japanese Lullaby, "-^Eugene Field (Clark's 
 Handbook). 
 
 "Spring Twilight,"— Edward Rowland SiU 
 (Clark's Handbook). 
 "Sweet and Low," — Alfred Tennyson. 
 "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,"— Jane Taylor. 
 
 Ii6 
 
INtERPRETATivn PORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 EKALTm) ADDRESS. 
 
 The dramatic ifelation between the speaker or 
 readei" anil the audience in this interpretative 
 form is one that exists in actual experience only 
 in times of religious worship, and in the rare in- 
 stances of a person's making some fervid vow or 
 declaration Where the people present are address- 
 ed not as an audience proper, but rather as wit- 
 nesses to such declaration. 
 
 Such parts of the Scriptures come under this in- 
 terpretative form as are in the form of immediate 
 address to Deity, or as are given as His messages. 
 The latter usually are accompanied with what 
 would elsewhere be the distinguishing mark of 
 Dramatic Narrative, that is, the phrase ' 'Thus saith 
 the Lord," or "The Lord spake and said;" but the 
 scriptural hterature written thus is, virtually, Ex- 
 alted Address, the phrase, "Thus saith the Lord" 
 merely being used to designate the speaker and not 
 otherwise affecting the significance of the words 
 spoken. (Dramatic Narrative proper, however, 
 is the interpretative form in which a large part 
 of the Scriptures are Written.) 
 
 tn the rendition of literature where there is 
 
 117 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 immediate address to Deity, as in praise, thanks- 
 giving, declaration, prayer, confession, supplica- 
 tion, the interpreter does not speak to the 
 audience as in Direct Personal Address, nor for 
 them as in the Drama, but, instead, he seems to 
 speak with the audience: they are included in his 
 declaration, confession or supplication — the one 
 speaking for the many. He must so sympa- 
 thetically relate himself to his hearers as to seem 
 as if he were giving voice to their thoughts and 
 emotions. This cannot be accomplished by ig- 
 noring their presence and speaking into indefinite 
 space as some speakers do. 
 
 Only genuine devotion and a profound desire 
 to uphft and inspire mankind can establish the 
 spiritual rapport essential to the rendition of 
 Uterature so fervent, so exalted, so universal as 
 this. Descriptive gestures or any elocutionary 
 devices would be unpardonable here. The deeper, 
 the more elevated the emotion the nearer the 
 voice approaches the monotone and the fewer 
 become the gestures of different bodily members: 
 therefore, in the expression of sublimity which is 
 an emotion that pervades all hterature whose in- 
 ns 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 terpretative form is Exalted Address, the ex- 
 pression of the body as a whole and the quaUty 
 of the voice must outwardly manifest the inner 
 elevation of spirit. 
 
 Thou Eternal One ! whose presence bright 
 All space doth occupy, all motion guide; 
 
 Unchanged through time's aU-devastating flight; 
 Thou only God ! There is no God beside. 
 
 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands, 
 
 Serve the Lord with gladness: 
 Come before his presence with singing. 
 
 Know you that the Lord he is God: 
 It is he that hath made us, and we are his ; 
 
 We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 
 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving. 
 
 And into his courts with praise; 
 Give thanks unto him, and bless his name. 
 
 —100th Psalm 
 
 O blows that smite! hurts that pierce 
 
 This shrinking heart of mine! 
 What are ye but the Master's tools, 
 
 Forming a work divine? 
 hope that crumbles at my feet! 
 
 O joy that mocks and flies! 
 What are ye but the clogs that bind 
 
 My spirit from the skies! 
 Sculptor of souls! I lift to thee 
 
 Encumbered heart and hands; 
 Spare not the chisel, set me free, 
 
 However dear the bands. 
 
 119 
 
INTBRPRHTATIVE FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 How blest, if all these seeming ills, 
 Which draw my thoughts to Thee, 
 
 Should only prove that Thou wilt make 
 An angel out of me! 
 
 The first half of the last illustration is a series 
 
 of apostrophes, but at the line conmiencing 
 
 "Sculptor of souls!" the interpretative form 
 
 changes to Exalted Address. 
 
 Further examples of Exalted Address are : 
 The Psalms. 
 
 "Poland," — Alfred Tennyson. 
 ' 'Eecessional, " — Eudyard Kipling (Clark's 
 Handbook). 
 
 CONTEMPLATIVE ADDRESS 
 The dramatic relation between the interpreter 
 and the audience in Contemplative Address is a 
 natural one — one that exists in daily social inter- 
 course. The difference between it and that in 
 Direct Personal Address, is that in the latter the 
 speaker is only the speaker, but in Contem- 
 plative Address he is an auditor as well; he talks 
 not only to the audience proper, but to his own 
 intellect, his own emotions; he mentally com- 
 ments as he philosophizes aloud. The element 
 of subjectivity always present in Contemplative 
 Address makes it partake of the nature of the 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB PORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 SolUoquy as well as of that of Direct Personal 
 Address. 
 
 In Direct Personal Address the speaker an- 
 nounces conclusions previously formed. In 
 Contemplative Address the mind is in i\L% process 
 of weighing problems, of determining relations, 
 of forming conclusions. Literature of this inter- 
 pretative form always has a certain serious im- 
 port, not necessarily sad or solemn but thought- 
 ful, philosophical. It manifestly is not the kind 
 of literature that makes "popular" readings. It 
 is better suited to small gatherings where there 
 is a common intellectual sympathy, or to the 
 class-room, or interpretative recital, or one's own 
 family circle. It is eminently reading-desk liter- 
 ature, or, even, much of it could be read with 
 equal freedom and naturalness when the reader 
 vs^as seated. Such hterature does not often cause 
 the "emotional stirrings" that find expression in 
 noticeable bodily responses. * 
 
 [*"All mental states (no matter what their character as re- 
 gards utility may be) arb followed by bodily activity of 
 SOME SORT. They lead to inconspicuous changes in breathing, 
 circulation, general muscular tension, and glandular or other 
 visceral activity, even if they do not lead to conspicuous move- 
 ments of the muscles of voluntary life. All states of mind 
 are motor in their consequences." — James' Psychology.'] 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 No descriptive gestures, and very few and in- 
 consequential sympathetic ones are called forth 
 by the mental state that here prevails. 
 
 Forenoon and afternoon and night, — Forenoon, 
 And afternoon and night, — Forenoon, and — what! 
 The empty song repeats itself. No more ? 
 Yea, that is Life : make this forenoon sublime, 
 This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer, 
 And time is conquered, and thy crown is won. 
 
 "Life."— Edward Rowland Sill * 
 
 The world is too much with us; late and soon, 
 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; 
 
 Little we see in nature that is ours; 
 
 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! 
 
 This sea that bears her bosom to the moon; 
 
 The winds that will be howling at all hours 
 
 And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers; 
 
 For this, for everything we are out of tune; 
 
 It moves us not. G-reat God ! I'd rather be 
 
 A pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 
 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 
 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn. 
 
 Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea, 
 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 
 
 "The World's Too Much With Us."— William Words- 
 worth. 
 
 * From "Poems," by permission of the publishers, Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin & Company. 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 This is clearly Contemplative Address as far as 
 the exclamation "Great God ! " The remainder 
 is in the nature of an impassioned deolaration 
 and, therefore, partakes more of the nature of 
 Exalted Address. 
 
 The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills, 
 
 and the plains — 
 Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who 
 
 reigns ? 
 
 Is not the Vision He ? tho' He be not that which 
 
 He seems ? 
 Dreams are true while they last, and do we not 
 
 live in dreams ! 
 
 Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and 
 
 limb, 
 Are they not sign and symbol of thy division 
 
 from Him ? 
 
 Dark is the world to thee : thyself art the reason 
 
 why; 
 For is He not aU but that which has power to 
 
 feel 'I am I?' 
 
 Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest 
 thy doom 
 
 Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splen- 
 dour and gloom. 
 
 Speak to Him then for He hears, and Spirit with 
 Spirit can meet — 
 
 123 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than 
 hands and feet. 
 
 God is law, say the wise ; O Soul, and let us re- 
 joice, 
 
 For if He thunder by law, the thunder is yet His 
 voice. 
 
 Law is Grod, some say : no Grod at aU, says the 
 
 fool ; 
 For all we have power to see is a straight staff 
 
 bent in a pool ; 
 
 And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of 
 
 man cannot see ; 
 But if we could see and hear, this Vision — were 
 it not He ? 
 "The Higher Pantheism." — Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 Further examples of Contemplative Address 
 are : 
 
 "If We Had the Time,"— Eichard Burton. 
 
 "Things That Never Die," — Charles Dickens 
 (Clark's Handbook). 
 
 "Truth at Last," — Edward Rowland Sill 
 (Clark's Handbook). 
 
 "Fate," — Susan Marr Spalding (Clark's Hand- 
 book). 
 
 "Oh, May I Join the Choir Invisible, — "George 
 Eliot (Clark's Handbook). 
 
 124 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 
 ' 'L'envoi, " — Eudyard Kipling. 
 
 "A Snow-Song," — Henry Van Dyke (Clark's 
 Handbook). 
 
 "If All the Skies,"— Henry Van Dyke (Clark's 
 Handbook). 
 
 "The Sleep," — Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 "The Chambered Nautilus," — Oliver "Wendell 
 Holmes. 
 
 PLAIN NARRATIVE 
 
 The dramatic relation between the reader and 
 the audience in Plain Narrative is the same as 
 the common one that exists in daily life when 
 one person tells another some story, or past inci- 
 dent, or describes in a simple, direct manner with- 
 out quoting any words, something experienced or 
 seen. Much historical writing is of this inter- 
 pretative form. Some lectures are, in reality. 
 Plain Narrative, being chiefly recitals of past 
 events. 
 
 Prose writing under this head is one of the 
 easiest and simplest of styles to interpret orally; 
 the emotional element is not usually intense and 
 the story or description carries by its own in- 
 herent interest. Descriptive gestures frequently 
 
 125 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 have a legitimate place in the rendition of litera- 
 ture in this interpretative form, either for intel- 
 lectual emphasis, or to present the definite shape 
 of something named, or for stage setting. Poet- 
 ry written in this form is more difficult to inter- 
 pret oraUy, because of its more intense emotional 
 element, its rhythm, its transpositions, its eUipses, 
 and all other elements ' 'out of the ordinary" style 
 of expression that are comprehended under the 
 term "poetic license." 
 
 As the sun's last rays dropped down behind 
 New York City, on March 3, 1789, there was a 
 parting salvo, thirteen guns, from the old fort in 
 the lower part of the city, for the last day of gov- 
 ernment under the Articles of Confederation. As 
 the first rays of the sun passed over the lower end 
 of Long Island the next morning, there was a sal- 
 ute of eleven guns from the same fort, to pro- 
 claim the birth of the first day under the Consti- 
 tution. Only eleven States had yet come in. * * 
 
 Congress met in the city hall, situated at Wall 
 and Broad streets. The hall had been remodelled, 
 with a new front having a row of columns and, 
 in the second story, a balcony. * * * 
 
 The question arose how a bill passed by one 
 house should get to the other. The Senate passed 
 a resolution that when a bill had passed the 
 House of Eepresentatives, it should be sent to the 
 
 126 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB PORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 Senate by the chief clerk. He should come to 
 the Senate and make his presence known. He 
 should advance three paces into the room and 
 make a bow, advance three paces more and make 
 another bow to the chair, and after handing the 
 bill to the president, should retreat in the same 
 fashion. The House said they would do nothing 
 of the sort, that they were just as good as the 
 Senate. And while this important national ques- 
 tion was before them the House passed a bill and 
 sent it up by the messenger. And we have been 
 doing business that way ever since. This illus- 
 trates what was said by an Enghshman, that the 
 Americans often talk of doing foolish things but 
 they do not often do foolish things. 
 
 Extract from "The First President," a lecture by- 
 Professor Edwin Earle Sparks. 
 
 WhUe it would savor decidedly of the burlesque 
 stage for a speaker Hterally ' 'to suit the action to 
 the word" and "advance three paces and make a 
 bow" and "advance three paces more and make 
 another bow," still such offense in this place 
 would not be as offensive as similar literahzing by 
 descriptive gestures would be in nearly all the 
 other interpretative forms ; because of the 
 kinds and degrees of emotional elements domin- 
 ant in the different forms, and because in this 
 form — as also in Direct Personal Address — the 
 
 127 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 dramatic relation between the speaker and the 
 audience is of such an immediate and simple na- 
 ture that he might naturally at times use descrip- 
 tive gestures. By no stretch of interpretative 
 Hcense can one imagine a speaker naturally mak- 
 ing descriptive gestures in Exalted Address. 
 
 -It had been wild weather, and across the 0am- 
 pagna the clouds were sweeping in sulphurous 
 blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and break- 
 ing gleams of sun along the Claudian aqueduct 
 lighting up the infinity of its arches Uke the 
 bridge of chaos. But the storm finally swept to 
 the north, and the noble outline of the domes of 
 Albano and graceful darkness of its ilex grove 
 against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, 
 the upper sky gradually fiushing through the last 
 fragments of rain-cloud in deep, palpitating 
 azure, half ether and half dew. — Ruskin. 
 
 "Milly Theale had Boston friends, such as they 
 were, and of recent making; and it was \inder- 
 stood that her visit to them — a visit that was not 
 to be meagre — had been undertaken after a series 
 of bereavements, in the interest of the particular 
 peace that New York could not give. It was rec- 
 ognized, liberally enough, that there were many 
 things — ^perhaps even too many — New York could 
 give; but this was felt to make no difference in 
 the constant fact that what you had most to do, 
 under the discipline of life, or of death, was really 
 
 128 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 to feel your situation as grave. Boston could 
 help you to that as nothing else could, and it had 
 extended to Milly, by every presumption, some 
 such measure of assistance. She was alone, she 
 was stricken, she was rich, and, in particular, 
 she was strange — a combination in itself of a 
 nature to engage Mrs. Stringham's attention; but 
 it was the strangeness that most determined our 
 good lady's sympathy, convinced as she was that 
 it was much greater than anyone else — anyone but 
 the sole, Susan Stringham — supposed. * * * She 
 (Mrs. Stringham), too, had had her discipline, but 
 it had not made her striking: it had been prosa- 
 ically usual, though doubtless a decent dose, and 
 had only made her usual to match it — usual, that 
 is, as Boston went. She had lost first her hus- 
 hand, and then her mother, with whom, on her 
 husband's death, she had lived again; so that now, 
 childless, she was but more sharply single than 
 before. * * * She went about her usual Boston 
 business with her usual Boston probity. She 
 wore her "handsome" felt hat, so Tyrolese, yel 
 somewhat, though feathered from the eagle's 
 wing, so truly domestic, with the same straight- 
 ness and security; she attached her fur boa with 
 the same honest precautions; she preserved her 
 balance on the ice-slopes with the same practical 
 skill: she opened, each evening, her "Transcript" 
 with the same interfusion of suspense and resig- 
 nation; she attended her almost daUy concert with 
 the same expenditure of patience, and the same 
 economy of passion. — Henry James. 
 
 129 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 The shadows lay along Broadway 
 
 'Twas near the twiUght tide, 
 And slowly there a lady fair 
 
 Was walking in her pride. 
 Alone walked she; but viewlessly 
 
 Walked spirits at her side. 
 
 Peace charm'd the street beneath her feet, 
 
 And Honor charm'd the air; 
 And all astir looked kind on her 
 
 And called her good as fair — 
 For all God ever gave to her 
 
 She kept with chary care. 
 
 —.V. P. Willis. 
 
 Further examples of Plain Narrative are : 
 
 "The Dying Swan," — Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 "Kubla Khan," — Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 
 
 "The Gardens of Pleasure," — Olive Schreiner. 
 
 "On the Chflf,"— Eobert Browning. 
 
 In the fourth verse of "On the Cliff," the tense 
 changes from past to present; the verse ending 
 with an exclamatory line. The interpretative 
 form of the last verse is Contemplative Address. 
 
 DRAMATIC NARRATIVE 
 The primary dramatic relation between the 
 reader and the audience in Dramatic Narrative 
 
 130 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITBRATURB. 
 
 is one common in daily experience; it is identical 
 with that in Plain Narrative, being simply that of 
 one person telling a story or relating some inci- 
 dent to another person or to a number of persons. 
 While this simple, direct relation is characteristic 
 of all narration, in Dramatic Narrative it is some- 
 times made secondary to another relation that 
 the presence of continued dialogue establishes. 
 When the dialogue constitutes the main part of 
 the selection and the narration merely connects, in- 
 troduces, or explains, — in short, presents the set- 
 ting, situations, actions and characters of the 
 dialogue more clearly (serving much the same 
 office as do stage directions in the drama) — the 
 selection is virtually drama as regards its inter- 
 pretative treatment, albeit its form is that of 
 Dramatic Narrative. Many novels "cut" for 
 readings are of this nature. 
 
 Sometimes, on the contrary, selections that by 
 their interpretative form are Dramatic Narrative 
 — all narration that contains direct quotations 
 being classed under this head — are as regards 
 their interpretative treatment virtually Plain 
 Narrative. This is so when the narration itself 
 
 131 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 constitutes nearly the whole of the selection, 
 there being only a few quoted words and those 
 having little or no dramatic significance when 
 considered in relation to the whole. 
 
 Between these two extreme styles of Dramatic 
 Narrative, there are many others; some ^contain- 
 ing more dialogue, others less; somewhere the 
 dialogue is short but of great dramatic signifi- 
 cance, or more extended but inconsequential. 
 Each reader in each new selection whose inter- 
 pretative form is Dramatic Narrative must exer- 
 cise not only "taste" hut judgment in determin- 
 ing how these various degrees of drama in narra- 
 tive shall be treated. If the principles of render- 
 ing in Chapter V; "Gestures and Determining 
 Elements in Eendition," are kept in mind, many 
 conspicuous errors now frequently present in the 
 work of readers whose work is generally good 
 will be easily avoided. 
 
 The nearer Dramatic Narrative approaches the 
 •drama in purport, the nearer the reader can just- 
 ifiably approximate impersonation in his rendi- 
 tion. 
 
 132 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITER ATURB 
 
 "The birds are going south, Antoine — see — 
 and it is so early!" 
 
 "Yes, Angelique, the winter will be long." 
 
 There was a pause, and then: "Antoine, I 
 heard a child cry in the night, and I could not 
 sleep." 
 
 "It was a devil- bird, my wife; it flies slowly, 
 and the summer is dead." 
 
 ' 'Antoine, there was a rushing of wings by my 
 bed before the morn was breaking." 
 
 ' 'The wild-geese know their way in the night, 
 Angelique; but they flew by the house and not 
 near thy bed." 
 
 ' 'The two black squirrels have gone from the 
 hickory tree." 
 
 ' 'They have hidden away with the bears in the 
 earth ; for the frost comes, and it is the time of 
 sleep. " 
 
 "A cold hand was knocking at my heart when 
 I said my aves last night, my Antoine." 
 
 "The heart of a woman feels many strange 
 things; I cannot answer, my wife." 
 
 "Let us go also southward, Antoine, before 
 the great winds and the wild frost come." 
 
 ' 'I love thee, Angelique, but I cannot go. " 
 
 "Is not love greater than all?" 
 
 "To keep a pledge is greater." 
 
 "Yet if evil come?" 
 
 "There is the mine." 
 
 "None travels hither; who should find it?" 
 
 "He said to me, my wife: 'Antoine, wiU you 
 stay and watch the mine until I come with the 
 
 133 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 birds northward, again?' and I said: 'I wiU stay, 
 and Angelique will stay; I will watch the 
 mine.' " 
 
 "This is for his riches, but for our peril, 
 Antoine." 
 
 ' 'Who can say whither a woman's fancy goes? 
 It is full of guessing. It is clouds and darkness 
 to-day, and sunshine — so much — to-morrow. I 
 cannot answer." 
 
 "I have a fear; if my husband loved me — " 
 
 "There is the mine" he interrupted firmly. 
 
 ' 'When my heart aches so — " 
 
 "Angelique, there is the mine." 
 
 "Ah, my AJntoine;" 
 
 * * * When she once had spoken she said 
 no more, but stayed and builded the heaps of 
 earth about the house, and fiUed every crevice 
 against the inhospitable Spirit of Winds, and 
 drew her world closer and closer within those 
 two rooms where they should live through many 
 months. 
 
 The winter was harsh, but the hearts of the 
 two were strong. They loved; and Love is the 
 parent of endurance, the begetter of courage. 
 And every day, because it seemed his duty, An- 
 toine inspected the Eose-Tree Mine; and every 
 day also, because it seemed her duty, Angehque 
 said many aves. — Gilbert Parker. 
 
 This excerpt from ' 'Antoine and Angelique" is, 
 until the last paragraphs, pure drama in spirit 
 and form (the name of the one speaking simply 
 
 134 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 being omitted). It should approach as near to 
 direct impersonation as any reading of a drama 
 of similar emotional intensity would. The nar- 
 rative that foUows would be told directly to the 
 audience; its emotional atmosphere would be 
 sympathetic with that of the preceding dialogue. 
 The words quoted by Antoine ' 'He said to me, 
 my wife: 'Antoine, will you stay and watch the 
 mine until I come with the birds northward, 
 again' and I said: 'I will stay, and Angelique 
 will stay; I will watch the mine,' " should be 
 given with the approximate, if not, indeed, the 
 actual, original melody of the speakers. Other- 
 wise there should be no suggestion of impersona- 
 tion. 
 
 "You are sick, that's sure," — they say: 
 
 Sick of what? — they disagree. 
 
 'Tis the brain, — thinks Dr. A., 
 
 'Tis the heart,— holds Dr. B., 
 
 The liver — my life I'll lay! 
 
 The lungs ! The lights ! 
 
 Ah, me! 
 So ignorant of man's whole 
 Of bodily organs plain to see — 
 So sage and certain, frank and free, 
 About what's under lock and key — 
 
 Man's soul! — Robert Browning. 
 
 135 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 The first verse here is practically drama; "Ah 
 me!" is an ejaculatory remark made by the nar- 
 rator to himself. The last verse might be con- 
 sidered part of the Dramatic Narrative, or Solil- 
 oquy, or even Contemplative Address; however 
 classified, it shotdd be given meditatively. 
 
 AU day, where the sunlight played on the sea- 
 shore, Life sat. She was waiting; but she 
 could not tell for what. Life sat waiting, till, 
 grown weary, she laid her head upon her knee 
 and fell asleep, waiting still. 
 
 Then a keel grated on the sand, and then a 
 step was on the shore — Life awoke and heard it. 
 A hand was laid upon her, and a great shudder 
 passed through her. She looked up, and saw 
 over her the strange, wide eyes of Love — and 
 Life now knew for whom she had sat there wait- 
 ing. 
 
 And Love drew Life up to him. 
 
 And of that meeting was born a thing rare 
 and beautiful — Joy, First- Joy was it called : and 
 Love and Life rejoiced exceedingly. Neither 
 whispered it to the other, but deep in its own 
 heart each said, ' 'It shaU be ours forever. " 
 
 Then there came a time — was it after weeks ? 
 was it after months? (Love and Life do not 
 measure time) — when the thing was not as it had 
 been. Sometimes the little hands hung weary, 
 and the little eyes looked out heavily across the 
 water. 
 
 136 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF UTERATURB 
 
 And Life and Love dared not look into each 
 other's eyes, dared not say, "What ails our dar- 
 ling?" Each heart whispered to itself, "It is 
 nothing, it is nothing, to-morrow it will laugh out 
 clear." But to-morrow and to-morrow came. 
 They journeyed on, and the child played beside 
 them, but heavily, more heavily. 
 
 One day Life and Love lay down to sleep; and. 
 when they awoke, it was gone; only, near themj 
 on the grass, sat a little stranger, with wide-open 
 eyes, very soft and very sad. Neither noticed it; 
 but walked apart, weeping bitterly, "Oh, our 
 Joy I our lost Joy ! shall we see you no more 
 forever ?" 
 
 The little soft and sad-eyed stranger slipped a 
 hand into one hand of each, and drew them 
 closer, and Life and Love walked on with it be- 
 tween them. And when Life looked down in an- 
 guish, she saw her tears reflected in its soft eyes. 
 And when Love, mad with pain, cried out, "I 
 am weary, I am weary ! I can journey no farther. 
 The Ughtis aU behind, the dark is all before," a 
 httle rosy finger pointed where the sunhght lay 
 upon the hiU-sides. Always its large eyes were 
 sad and thoughtful; always the brave little mouth 
 was smiling quietly. 
 
 When on the sharp stones Life cut her feet, he 
 wiped the blood upon his garments, and kissed 
 the wounded feet with his little hps. 
 
 When they came to the dark ravine where 
 icicles hang from rocks — for Love and Life must 
 
 137 
 
INTURPRETATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 pass through strange drear places — there, where 
 all is cold, and the snows lie thick, he took their 
 freezing hands and held them against his beating 
 httle heart, and warmed them — and softly drew 
 them on and on. * * * He touched them as 
 their Joy had touched them, but his fingers clung 
 more tenderly. 
 
 So they wandered on, through the dark lands 
 and the light, always with that httle brave smil- 
 ing one between them. 
 
 At last they came where Reflection sits; that 
 strange old woman who has always one elbow on 
 her knee, and her chin in her hand, and who 
 steals light out of the past to shed it on the 
 future. 
 
 And Life and Love cried out, "0 wise one ! 
 tell us : when first we met, a lovely radiant thing 
 belonged to us — gladness without a tear, sunshine 
 without a shade. Oh ! how did we sin that we 
 lost it ? where shall we go that we may find it ?" 
 
 And she, the wise old woman, answered, "To 
 have it back, will you give up that which walks 
 beside you now ?" 
 
 And in agony Love and Life cried, "No !" 
 
 "Give up this !" said Life, "When the thorns 
 have pierced me, who wiU suck the poison out ? 
 When my head throbs, who wiU lay his tiny hands 
 upon it and still the beating ? In the cold and 
 the dark, who will warm my freezing heart ?" 
 
 And Love cried out, "Better let me die! without 
 Joy I can live; without this I cannot. Let me 
 rather die, not lose it !" 
 
 138 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 And the wise old woman answered, "0 fools 
 and blind ! What once you had is that which 
 you have now ! When Love and Life first meet, 
 a radiant thing is born without a shade. When 
 the roads begin to roughen, when the shades be- 
 gin to darken, when the days are hard, and the 
 nights long and cold — then it begins to change. 
 Love and Life will not see it, will not know it — 
 till one day they start up suddenly, crying, 'O 
 God ! O God ! we have lost it ! Where is it ?' 
 They do not understand that they could not carry 
 the laughing thing unchanged into the desert, 
 and the frost, and the snow. They do not know 
 that what walks beside them still is the Joy 
 grown older. The grave, sweet, tender thing — 
 warm in the coldest snows, brave in the dreariest 
 deserts — its name is Sympathy; it is the Perfect 
 Love." — Olive Scbreiaer. 
 
 The contrast between this Dramatic Narrative 
 and the preceding ones, is easily apparent : this 
 is far removed from the drama. 
 
 In this allegorical selection the narrative is as 
 important as is the dialogue. Only by sympa- 
 thetic comprehension of the spirit of the piece, 
 only by imagination, changing the symbolic 
 into the actual, can a reader so illumine the 
 author's words that they shall have due human 
 significance in rendition. The quoted words es- 
 
 139 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 pecially require subtle, delicate treatment: "It 
 shall be ours forever," and "what ails our dar- 
 ling?" these whisperings of the heart are deeply 
 emotional and also extremely subjective in nature. 
 "Neither noticed it; but they walked apart, weep- 
 ing bitterly, 'Oh, our Joy ! our lost Joy 1 shall we 
 see you no more forever ? ' " Again this is a 
 subjective cry from the heart: even to suggest 
 actual objective weeping would be to lose the 
 atmosphere of the piece. 
 
 The conversation between Love and Life and the 
 wise old woman Eeflection — is much the same as 
 one that might take place in daily life between two 
 persons where the subject was some vital personal 
 problem, and one person spoke with the compas- 
 sionate wisdom born of wide experience, and the 
 other with the impulsiveness of inexperienced 
 youth. 
 
 Two gray hawks ride the rising blast ; 
 Dark cloven clouds drive to and fro 
 By peaks preeminent in snow; 
 A sounding river rushes past, 
 So wild, so vortex-like, and vast. 
 
 140 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 A lone lodge tops the windy hiU; 
 A tawny maiden, mute and still, 
 Stands waiting at the river's brink. 
 As weird and wild as you can think. 
 
 A mighty chief is at her feet; 
 She does not heed him wooing so — 
 She hears the dark, wild waters flow; 
 She waits her lover, tail and fleet, 
 From far gold fields of Idaho, 
 Beyond the beaming hills of snow. 
 
 He comes ! The grim chief springs in air — 
 
 His brawny arm, his blade is bare, 
 
 She turns; she hfts her round, dark hand; 
 
 She looks him fairly in the face; 
 
 She moves her foot a little pace 
 
 And says, with coldness and command, 
 
 ' ' There's blood enough in this lorn land. 
 
 But see ! a test of strength and skill, 
 
 Of courage and fierce fortitude; 
 
 To breast and wrestle with the rude 
 
 And storm-born waters, now I will 
 
 Bestow you both Stand either side I 
 
 Take you my left, tall Idaho; 
 
 And you, my burly chief, I know 
 
 Would choose my right. Now peer you low 
 
 Across the waters wild and wide. 
 See ! leaning so this morn, I spied 
 Eed berries dip yon farther side. 
 See, dipping, dripping in the stream, 
 Twin boughs of autumn berries gleam ! 
 
 141 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITBRATURE 
 
 "Now, this, brave men, shall be the test : 
 Plunge in the stream, bear knife in teeth 
 To cut yon bough for bridal wreath. 
 Plunge in ! and he who bears him best, 
 And brings yon ruddy fruit to land 
 The first shall have both heart and hand. " 
 
 Then one threw robes with sullen air, 
 And wound red fox tails in his hair. 
 But one with face of proud dehght 
 Entwined a crest of snowy white. 
 
 She sudden gave 
 The sign, and each impatient brave 
 Shot sudden in the soundtug wave ; 
 The startled waters gurgled round. 
 Their stubborn strokes kept suUen sound. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 "0 splendid, kingly Idaho, 
 
 I kiss his lifted crest of snow; 
 
 I see him clutch the bended bough! 
 
 'Tis cleft ! He turns ! is coming now; 
 
 My tall and tawny king, come back ! 
 
 Come swift, sweet ! Why falter so ? 
 
 Come ! Come ! What thing has crossed your 
 
 track ? 
 I kneel to aU the gods I know ! 
 
 O come, my manly Idaho ! 
 
 * * * * 
 
 O God, he sinks ! He sinks ! Is gone ! 
 His face has perished from my sight ! 
 And did I dream or do I wake? 
 Or did I wake and now but dream? 
 
 142 
 
INTERPRET ATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 And what is this crawls from the stream? 
 O here is some mad, mad, mistake ! 
 What you ! The red fox at my feet? 
 You first, and failing from a race ? 
 What ! you have brought me berries red ? 
 What ! you have brought your bride a wreath ? 
 You sly red fox with wrinkled face — 
 That blade has blood, between your teeth ! 
 Lie still ! lie still ! till I lean o'er 
 And clutch your red blade to the shore. 
 Ha! Ha! Take that! and that! and that!" 
 
 Extract from "The Sioux Chief's Daughter."— Joaquin 
 Miller. 
 
 This is a hackneyed, old-time elocution piece. 
 Its melodramatic characteristics made it a favor- 
 ite with readers whose idea of "a good piece for 
 recitation'" was one that afforded numerous op- 
 portunities for striking effects — things to be 
 done with the body and voice. Some literature 
 of superior quality affords such opportunities 
 — Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Mother and 
 Poet" — as does much of inferior quality. 
 
 This particular poem is an interesting study 
 as regards interpretative forms. It is Dramatic 
 Narrative told partly in present tense and partly 
 in past tense; it contains extended, direct quota- 
 tions in which are lines of Direct Personal Ad- 
 
 143 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 dress, Apostrophe and Soliloquy. A form of 
 such a complex interpretative nature could 
 scarcely fail to contain many temptations for the 
 unwary interpreter. 
 
 From the first line there is unusual opportu- 
 nity for descriptive gestures of magnitude and 
 range. First, the hawks can be pointed out, 
 then that uplifted arm gesture can readily 
 * 'flow" into a still loftier one to indicate the "dark, 
 cloven clouds," and then the "peaks preeminent 
 in snow," "the river," "the lodge," and "the 
 maiden," can all be literally indicated. Can be ? 
 Indeed, they have been many times by many elo- 
 cutionists of no mean natural ability. Moreover, 
 some have attempted to justify such descriptive 
 gestures on the ground that they were gestures 
 of stage setting and therefore necessary for 
 the audience to " get the picture." But even 
 were it a fact — which it is not — that the audi- 
 ence needs to have these various objects that are 
 described by the words, also located, by gesture, 
 how would the scenes following be painted by 
 gestures to make them consistent with this 
 "stage setting?" The poem says, "A mighty 
 
 144 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 chief is at her feet." Possibly he could be indi- 
 cated as being near the place in space whete the 
 maiden had been located; and the "far gold 
 fields of Idaho," from which her lover is to 
 come, might also be descriptively located; but, 
 at the beginning of the fourth verse, it is no 
 longer description of scenery and people, but of 
 action — actions that have an emotional signifi- 
 cance and are of greater dramatic value than 
 a.ny scenic effects in the present tense. The ex- 
 pected lover "comes," the "chief springs in air," 
 -the maiden "turns," "lifts her round, dark 
 Jiand," "looks," "moves her foot" and "«ay«." 
 Surely, the impossibility of presenting this ac- 
 tion as related in any natural way to the previ- 
 ous "stage setting" descriptive gestures, must be 
 acknowledged by every one who waits for the 
 whole problem to he stated before he commences ci- 
 jphering. 
 
 To locate by descriptive gestures a scene and 
 the dramatis personse in some remote imaginary 
 place, and on the next lines to impersonate the 
 characters on the actual stage in front of the au- 
 dience, ia about as far a reach from truth in ren- 
 
 145 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 dition as an interpreter can get. The speeches 
 of the Indian maiden — direct quotations — are of 
 first importance in the poem, emotionally and 
 structurally, hence the need of suggestive imper- 
 sonation in order to present the spirit of the 
 selection. Even so, the reader must keep to his 
 part as a reader and not attempt to re-hve, to 
 actualize, some of the lines as an actor might do. 
 ' ' Stand either side ! " An actor would be justified 
 in definitely indicating the places the tvro men 
 were to take ; a reader must only suggest them 
 by sympathetic gestures. 
 
 "See! leaning so this morn," the only gesttire 
 permissible to the reader here, are those sympa- 
 thetic with the feeling of the maiden at re-dis- 
 covering the berries. The pretty wrist-bending 
 gesture that frequently actualizes the "dipping, 
 dripping in the stream," is of course elocutionary 
 excrescence. 
 
 "Then one threw robes with sullen air," here 
 the tense changes from present to past. To show 
 how one "wound red fox taUs in his hair," and 
 one "entwined a crest of snow white," how the 
 maiden "gave the sign," how "each impatient 
 
 146 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATIJRB 
 
 brave shot sudden," how the waters "gurgled 
 round" and their "stubborn strokes," would be 
 simply doing things, not interpretating hterature. 
 
 The last seven verses commencing with "O 
 splendid, kingly Idaho," are again the direct 
 speech of the maiden, addressed now to her lover> 
 now to Deity, occasionally to herself for a line or 
 two, then to the murderous old chief and, at last, 
 again to her lover. Only a rendering close to 
 literal impersonation could present these sudden 
 and violent emotional transitions. 
 
 It may seem to some a needless precaution ta 
 suggest that no matter how impassioned a readings 
 may be, a reader should never kneel when saying 
 lines similar to "I kneel to all the gods I know! " 
 It is hoped that the enumeration and the reitera- 
 tion of certain palpable falsities in readers' 
 approach to literature, herein made, may help ta 
 make such precautions unnecessary in the near 
 future ; but to-day when not only readers young 
 in their profession thus literaUze words, but even 
 a widely popular teacher of teachers of literatur& 
 and expression slowly and rhythmically sinks to 
 her knees as she describes a man sinking in 
 
 147 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 quick-sand, it would seem that no word can be 
 too explicit that attempts to establish a right, 
 natural relation between the speaker or reader 
 and the literature interpreted, and the audience 
 addressed. 
 
 On the Unes that are the climax of the Indian 
 maiden's passion, 
 
 "Lie still ! lie still! till I lean o'er 
 And clutch your red blade to the shore. 
 Ha ! Ha ! Take that ! and that ! and that ! " 
 
 the impersonation would be much closer than in 
 her first and less impassioned speech. But even 
 here it must not be too literal ; the clutching of 
 the blade must not be too definite, nor the strokes 
 measured or exact in number. 
 
 The action of leaning is spoken of in the two 
 speeches; in the first, "leaning so this morn" — 
 description of a past act which should not be made 
 definite; in the second, "till I lean o'er" — 
 naming of a passionate action that is iminediately 
 to be enacted which would naturally caU forth a 
 sympathetic gesture. 
 
 Emotionally-manifestive gestures alone would 
 be incited by such strong stimuli as are present 
 
 148 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 throughout this long speech where the passion is 
 so intense that it becomes, at times, frenzy — ex- 
 cept, of course, where action is imphed or de- 
 scribed, then the gestures would be sympathetic. 
 Here, where such volcanic feelings burst forth 
 uncontrolled, the expression of the body would be 
 an uninterrupted series of emotionally-mani- 
 festive gestures from the beginning to the close. 
 This selection has been discussed at length be- 
 cause it graphically presents so many illustrations 
 of vital moment in interpretation; also it is hoped 
 that this discussion may influence young inter- 
 preters not to read selections of this order. 
 
 "I'm losted. Could you find me, please ? " 
 
 Poor little frightened baby ! 
 
 The wind had tossed her golden fleece, 
 
 The stones had scratched her dimpled knees; 
 
 I stooped and lifted her with ease, 
 
 And softly whispered, ' 'May be. " 
 
 ' 'Tell me your name, my little maid, 
 
 I can't find you without it." 
 
 "My name is Shiney Eyes," she said; 
 
 ' 'Yes, but your last ? " She shook her heady 
 
 "Up to my house 'ey never said 
 
 A single fing about it." 
 
 149 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 "But, dear," I said, "What is your name?" 
 "Why, didn't you hear me told you — 
 Dust Shiney Eyes." A bright thought came, 
 "Yes, when you're good, but when 
 They have to blame you, little one, 
 Is't just the same when 
 Mamma has to scold ? " 
 
 "My mamma never scolds" — she moans, 
 
 A little blush ensuing, 
 
 " 'Oept when I've been a-f rowing stones. 
 
 And then she says" — the culprit owns — 
 
 "Mehitable Sophia Jones, 
 
 What has you been a-doing ? " 
 
 —•'Her Name.'' 
 
 This little poem while largely conversation, is 
 not a near approach to the drama. It is essen- 
 tially a story, the recounting of a pretty incident 
 connected with a little child. As the main 
 purpose in telling the story is evidently to present 
 the child's charming ingenuousness, the child's 
 melody and, possibly, approximately the key of 
 her voice would be given; also, doubtless, the 
 reader's facial expression would be sympathetically 
 responsive to the child's varied emotion. But such 
 sympathetic impersonation must not extend to the 
 narrative parts of the piece : the narrator's down- 
 ward glance must not declare to the audience that 
 
 150 
 
INTBRPRBTATlvn FORMS OP LITER ATURB 
 
 the child is little and is near him on the floor, 
 or must the speaker show the audience how he 
 "stooped" and "lifted," or that he afterwards 
 held the child in his arms, as the words clearly 
 indicate that he did. 
 
 Further examples of Dramatic Narrative are : 
 
 "Aunt Hitty Tarbox" from "Timothy's Quest,', 
 — Kate Douglas Wiggin. 
 
 "Pompey's Ghost," — Thomas Hood. 
 
 "How They Brought the Good News from 
 Ghent," — Eobert Browning. 
 
 ' 'Saul, " — Eobert Browning. 
 
 "The Last Chance" from "Dolly Dialogues," — 
 Anthony Hope. 
 
 "A Second Trial,'' — Sarah Winter Kellogg 
 (Clark's Handbook). 
 
 "The Secret of Death,"— Sir Edwin Arnold 
 (Clark's Handbook). 
 
 "TheEhyme of the Duchess May," — Elizabeth 
 Barrett Browning. 
 
 "He and She,"— Sir Edwin Arnold. 
 
 "The Last Word," — Henry Van Dyke. 
 
 "Opportunity," — Edward Eowland Sill. 
 
 151 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 "The Fool's Prayer,"— Edward Rowland SiU 
 
 "The Ballad of the Oyster Man,"— Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes. 
 
 "The Pied Piper of Hamelin,"— Eobert Brown- 
 ing. 
 
 "The Guerdon,"— Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
 
 "The Lady of Shalott, "—Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 ' 'His Mother's Sermon, " — Ian Maclaren (Clark's 
 Handbook). 
 
 SOLILOQUY. 
 
 In a sohloquy the dramatic relation between 
 the reader and the audience is not an actual one : 
 it is extrinsic, not intrinsic. People in daily Uf e do 
 not commonly soliloquize unless there exists an 
 abnormal mental state. The word "soliloquy" 
 implies the absence of any relation whatever to 
 an audience other than oneself. In soliloquy, then, 
 the speaker is theoretically unrelated to the au- 
 dience, but such unrelatedness must not be under- 
 stood to mean that the interpreter loses — or can 
 ever afford to lose — vital sympathy with the au- 
 dience in even the most subjective soliloquy any 
 more than he can in spirited conversation in the 
 
 152 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 drama, where he apparently has no consciousness 
 of the audience. Instead, by saying that the in- 
 terpreter is unrelated to the audience, is meant 
 that no relation is imposed between them by vir- 
 tue of the interpretative form of the literature; in 
 such cases, the interpreter is in the position of one 
 who talks for the audience rather than to it. 
 
 Except for the fact that soliloquy is not 
 addressed to the audience, it is similar in in- 
 terpretative form to all address, being written in 
 first person, present tense. Literature having 
 these person and tense elements contains the 
 least complicated situations of any Uterature for 
 the oral interpreter ; in its rendition he simply 
 speaks as if he were talking now — voicing his 
 own thoughts and feelings — under the environing 
 conditions and the emotional stimuli implied by 
 the literature. 
 
 A Soliloquy may be introspective, objective or 
 irrational in its nature. Abstract themes, philo- 
 sophic human problems, and soul experiences, 
 usually furnish the subject matter of soliloquies 
 that are of a pronouncedly introspective nature; 
 people, things, events, material conditions and 
 
 153 
 
INTURPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 emotional states furnish the subject matter of 
 those objective in nature; and the soliloquy of a 
 person whose mind is distraught is irrational in 
 its nature. Some of the great soliloquies in 
 Shakespeare are of each of these different orders. 
 
 Of Hamlet's soliloquies the one commencing 
 '•To be or not be" is purely introspective in 
 nature; it is abstracted and whoUy unrelated to 
 external environment. The one commencing, 
 ' ' How all occasions do inform against me, and 
 spur my dull revenge ! What is man if his chief 
 good and market of his time be but to sleep and 
 feed?" is also introspective, but not so extremely 
 so as the former. The one commencing "Now 
 might I do it pat, now he is praying ; and now 
 I'U do't. And so he goes to heaven;" is of a 
 more objective nature. While the one commenc- 
 ing "O, what a rogue and peasant slave ami" is 
 still more objective; albeit, not so objective as 
 King Eichard the Third's commencing, "Give me 
 another horse ! bind up my wounds. " Lady Mac- 
 beth's soliloquy commencing, "Out, damned spot! 
 out ! I say!" is irrational in its nature. The Por- 
 
 154 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 ter's soliloquy in "Macbeth," commencing, "Here's 
 a knocking indeed!" is colloquially objective. 
 
 Giovanni. [^Coming from behind the arras. J All doubt 
 
 at last is o'er ! He hath said it out ! 
 Almost I had my dagger in his heart! 
 Yet sooner than betray, he is gone to death. 
 [^Wildly.'] I cannot have thee die, my Paolo! 
 Perhaps even now he drinks: even now the phial 
 Touches his lips — ah, brother, dash it down! 
 How much, then, hast thou drunk? not yet enough. 
 Not yet enough — I know — for death? Which way 
 Went he — I'U follow him. {Bushes to door, there 
 
 pauses. ~\ Yet, my God! 
 It must be so! How else ? He is so bound 
 To her, he cannot fly, he must not stay! 
 He has gone out upon the only road. 
 And this is my relief ! dread relief ! 
 Thus only am I pure of brother's blood! 
 I must be still while he goes out to die! 
 And yet be still — while he who is most dear 
 Drinks poison — yet I must be very still ! 
 From "Paolo and Francesca." — Stephen Phillips. 
 
 The origin of this sohloquy is not a mental 
 questioning on an universal theme as are many 
 great soliloquies: it issues direct from intense and 
 conflicting passions — passions that border on 
 frenzy. It is primarily objective in nature. 
 
 155 
 
INTBRPRBTahv t, tUKM:> up uiiar^^i ujxa 
 
 Tessa. [After iarring the door, goes to glass.] 
 Now I can play for awhile. [She puts some hloom 
 on her face.] Oh,, hut this bloom is beautiful! 
 And how it makes one's eyes sparkle ! Now this 
 red salve for the lips — and that is just what 1 
 lacked. My lips are too pale — but now ! Where 
 is that pencil? Here. Shall I lengthen my eye- 
 brows, curving them so? No ; I wiU only deepen 
 them. There, then ! [She walks up and down 
 iefore a glass, then sits dejectedly.] Yet what is 
 the use of all this? I am never seen, may not 
 stir into the streets. And I want to be seen, and 
 hear music and — 
 
 From "Paolo and Francesca " — Stephen Phillips. 
 
 This is another soliloquy whose spirit is col- 
 loquial. 
 
 I wonder what day of the week — 
 I wonder what month of the year — 
 "Will it be midnight, or morning 
 And who wiU bend over my bier? 
 
 What a hideous fancy to come 
 As I wait, at the foot of the stair, 
 While Lilian gives the last touch 
 To her robe, or the rose in her hair. 
 
 Do I hke your new dress — pompadour? 
 And do I like you ? On my life, 
 You are eighteen, and not a day more. 
 And have not been six years my wife. 
 
 Those two rosy boys in the crib 
 Up-stairs are not ours, to be sure ! 
 
 156 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 You are just a sweet bride in her bloom, 
 All sunshine, and snowy, and pure. 
 
 As the carriage roUs down the dark street 
 The little wife laughs and makes cheer — 
 But .... I wonder what day of the week, 
 I wonder what month of the year. 
 "An Untimely Thought*." — Thomas Bailey Aldricb. 
 
 The first verse of this poem is deeply intro- 
 spective ; in the second verse the speaker recog- 
 nizes his own mental, and comments upon it in 
 relation to his external, surroundings, this is less 
 introspective ; in the third and fourth verses the 
 interpretative form directly changes to that of 
 Dramatic Monologue — he no longer speaks to him- 
 self but to his wife. In the last two lines of the 
 fifth verse, he again lapses into soliloquy. 
 
 NARRATIVE MONOLOGUE 
 
 In Narrative Monologue the dramatic relation 
 
 between the reader and the audience is a blending, 
 
 as it were, of that which exists in the Drama and 
 
 in Soliloquy. The more subjective the nature of 
 
 * With permission of Houghton, MifSin and Company, 
 Publishers. 
 
 157 
 
INTERPRETATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 the Narrative Monologue the nearer the relation 
 approaches the indirect or extrinsic relation of 
 the Soliloquy ; the more objective its nature, the 
 nearer the relation approaches that which is 
 present in the Drama. The subject matter of the 
 Narrative Monologue always is chiefly about the 
 speaker; either his experiences, objective or sub- 
 jective, or his thoughts and feelings about con- 
 ditions, events, objects or other people. Whatever 
 direct quotations occur in this interpretative form, 
 are usually quotations from the speaker's own 
 thoughts, imagination or memory. 
 
 A notable difference between Narrative Mono- 
 logue of a subjective nature and Soliloquy is that 
 the former deals principally with past events, 
 while the latter is the utterance of one's thoughts 
 and feelings as they arrive: when Narrative 
 Monologue is likewise a direct "speaMng-out" 
 from one's present life, its nature which is con- 
 versationally intimaied ifferentiates it from Solil- 
 oquy. The treatment of this kind of Narrative 
 Monologue in oral rendition would be the same as 
 that of a prolonged speech of a single character 
 in the Drama. 
 
 158 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF UTBRATURB 
 
 The fact that Narrative Monologue of a sub- 
 jective nature is mainly a recounting — and 
 re-living — of past events has a determining 
 influence on its treatment in oral rendition; in 
 Soliloquy the mental attitude of the reader is 
 usually introspective, in such Narrative Monologue 
 it is chiefly retrospective. 
 
 O good painter, tell me true, 
 
 Has your hand the cunning to draw 
 Shapes of things that you never saw? 
 
 Ay ? Well, here is an order for you. 
 
 Woods and cornfields, a little brown, — 
 
 The picture must not be over-bright, 
 
 Yet all in the golden and gracious light 
 Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down. 
 Two little urchins at her knee 
 You must paint, sir ; one hke me. 
 The other with a clearer brow, 
 
 And the Ught of his adventurous eyes 
 
 Flashing with boldest enterprise ; 
 At ten years old he went to sea, — 
 God knoweth if he be living now ; 
 
 He sailed in the good ship "Commodore," — 
 Nobody ever crossed her track 
 To bring us news, and she never came back. 
 
 Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more 
 Since that old ship went out of the bay 
 
 With my great-hearted brother on her deck. 
 
 159 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 ****** 
 
 At last we stood at our mother's knee. 
 
 Do you think, sir, if you try. 
 
 You can paint the look of a lie ? 
 
 If you can, pray have the grace 
 
 To put it solely in the face 
 
 Of the urchin that is likest me : 
 ****** 
 
 You, sir, know- 
 That you on the canvas are to repeat 
 Things that are fairest, things most sweet, — 
 Woods and cornfields and mulberry tree, — 
 The mother, — the lads, with their bird, at her knee ; 
 
 But, oh, that look of reproachful woe ! 
 High as the heavens your name I'll shout. 
 If you paint me the picture, and leave that out. 
 
 "An Order for a Picture." — Alice Cary. 
 
 It will be remembered that the dictionary is 
 the authority for the distinction between the dif- 
 ferent kinds of monologue herein named, Nar- 
 rative and Dramatic ; that the chief difference 
 between these is that in Narrative Monologue 
 "the actor tells a continuous story in which he 
 is the chief character, referring to others as 
 absent," while in Dramatic Monologue "the 
 actor implies that others are present, leading the 
 audience to imagine what they say by his replies." 
 
 In the first verse of the extract from "An Or- 
 
 i6o 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 der for a Picture " the one word in the last line, 
 "Ay?" would seem to place this selection under 
 the head of Dramatic Monologue, for it clearly 
 indicates that the painter has said that he can 
 paint pictures from description only. This one 
 word, however, indicates the only time that the 
 painter speaks; other than this throughout the 
 entire poem he is merely the person to whom the 
 ^'continuous story " is told — this story being about 
 the speaker, others being referred to as absent, 
 therefore, the poem is essentially Narrative Mono- 
 logue. The omitted portions which are of consid- 
 erable length are largely description, but des- 
 cription that calls for sympathetic, not descrip- 
 tive, gestures; emotionally manifestive gestures 
 would be the natural bodily response to the parts 
 that are not description. 
 
 It was roses, roses, all the way. 
 
 With myrtle mixed in my path like mad: 
 
 The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, 
 The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, 
 
 A year ago on this very day. 
 
 The air broke into a mist with bells. 
 
 The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. 
 Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels — 
 
 i6l 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 
 But give me your sun from yonder skies !" 
 They had answered "And afterward, what else?'" 
 
 Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun 
 To give it my loving friends to keep ! 
 
 Naught man could do, have I left undone : 
 And you see my harvest, what I reap 
 
 This very day, now a year is run. 
 
 There's nobody on the house-tops now — 
 Just a palsied few at the windows set ; 
 
 For the best of the sight is, all allow, 
 At the Shambles' G-ate — or, better yet. 
 
 By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 
 
 I go in the rain, and, more than needs, 
 A rope cuts both my wrists behind; 
 
 And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds. 
 For they fling, whoever has a mind. 
 
 Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. 
 
 Thus I entered, and thus I go ! 
 
 In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. 
 ' 'Paid by the world, what dost thou owe 
 
 Me ?" — God might question; now instead, 
 'Tis God shaU repay: I am safer so. 
 
 "The Patriot."— Robert Brownings 
 
 The first of this poem is subjective in nature,, 
 but the line next to the last in the third verse, 
 ' 'And you see my harvest, what I reap " serves^ 
 to relate the speaker to the audience — real or 
 imagined — as one is not related in Soliloquy. 
 
 162 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 In the first three verses the speaker is retro- 
 spective, then the tense changes and he speaks of 
 present conditions. Because of this, it would he 
 permissible to approach nearer to impersonation 
 in this piece than is often so in Narrative Mono- 
 logue. 
 
 Quoted words whose emotional quality is com- 
 plex are always a difficult element in oral rendi- 
 tion : the words at the close of the second verse, 
 ' 'And afterward, what else ?" are an illustration 
 in point. To a certain degree, the patriot here 
 recalls the antecedent conditions — the happy con- 
 ditions that prevailed just a year before — were 
 the remembrance of those conditions the only 
 source of emotional stimulus, the quoted words 
 should suggest only the jubilant generosity of a 
 rejoicing populace; but a greater emotional stim- 
 ulus than that afforded by the remembrance 
 of that day is the present tragic conditions; 
 and a still further contributory influence to the 
 emotional atmosphere is the patriot's phUosophicaL 
 faith as evidenced in the last verse. 
 
 163 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 It once might have been, once only: 
 
 We lodged in a street together, 
 You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely, 
 
 I, a lone she-bird of his feather. 
 
 Your trade was with sticks and clay. 
 You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished. 
 
 Then laughed, "They will see, some day, 
 Smith made, and Gibson demolished." 
 
 My business was song, song, song; 
 
 I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and twittered, 
 * 'Kate Brown's on the boards ere long. 
 
 And Grisi's existence imbittered !" 
 
 I earned no more by a warble 
 
 Than you by a sketch in plaster; 
 You wanted a piece of marble, 
 
 I needed a music-master. 
 
 We studied hard in our styles, 
 
 Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, 
 
 For air, looked out on the tiles. 
 
 For fun, watched each other's windows. 
 
 You lounged, like a boy of the South, 
 Cap and blouse — nay, a bit of beard, too; 
 
 Or you got it, rubbing your mouth 
 With fingers the clay adhered to. 
 
 And I — soon managed to find 
 
 Weak points in the flower-fence facing, 
 Was forced to put up a blind 
 
 And be safe in my corset-lacing. 
 
 164 
 
ii^inrLjrt<in,i^ili^li tUKMb' OP LITBRATURB 
 
 No harm ! It was not my fault 
 If you never turned your eyes tail up 
 
 As I shook upon E in alt. , 
 
 Or ran the chromatic scale up ; 
 
 For spring bade the sparrows pair, 
 And the boys and girls gave guesses, 
 
 And stalls in our street looked rare 
 With bulrush and water-cresses. 
 
 Why did not you pinch a flower 
 
 In a pellet of clay and fling it ? 
 Why did not I put a power 
 
 Of thanks in a look, or sing it ? 
 
 I did look, sharp as a lynx 
 
 (And yet the memory rankles) 
 When models arrived, some minx 
 
 Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles. 
 
 But I think I gave you as good ! 
 
 "That foreign fellow — who can know 
 How she pays, in a playful mood. 
 
 For his tuning her that piano?" 
 
 Could you say so, and never say, 
 
 "Suppose we join hands and fortunes, 
 
 And I fetch her from over the way. 
 
 Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes? "' 
 
 No, no ; you would not be rash. 
 Nor I rasher and something over : 
 
 You've to settle yet Gibson's hash. 
 And Grisi yet lives in clover. 
 
 165 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURB 
 
 But you meet the Prince at the Board, 
 
 I'm queen myself at lals-pares, 
 I've married a rich old lord, 
 
 And you're dubbed knight and an E. A. 
 
 Each life's unfulfilled, you see ; 
 
 It hangs still patchy and scrappy ; 
 We have not sighed deep, laughed free, 
 
 Starved, feasted, despaired, — ^been happy. 
 
 And nobody calls you a dunce. 
 
 And people suppose me clever ; 
 This could but have happened once, 
 
 And we missed it, lost it forever. 
 
 "Youth and Art." — Robert Browning. 
 
 Some interpreters claim that this Narrative 
 Monologue is actually addressed to the man who 
 is "dubbed knight and an K. A.," others main- 
 tain that the speaker in a retrospective mood 
 merely voices her heart's confession to the 
 imagined presence of her former artist-neighbor. 
 It is impossible, judging by the letter of the words, 
 to say which view is right ; but the latter one 
 better accords with the established social code ; 
 many women might confess a heart's shipwreck 
 to themselves, but few would make hke confes- 
 sion to the man whose failure to declare his love 
 had caused the inner tragedy. 
 
 i66 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 Such difference in conception would naturally 
 make a marked difference in the oral rendition. 
 The first conception would necessitate more 
 vivacity in the first two-thirds of the poem than 
 would the second — in fact, only a spirit of half- 
 reckless gaiety woixld warrant direct address of 
 such order ; the verse commencing ' ' Could you 
 say so, and never say," in direct address would 
 be deeply emotional, and the remainder of the 
 poem would doubtless be tinged with bitterness. 
 The second conception would cause the reader to 
 speak throughout in a semi-contemplative man- 
 ner. The woman's naturally versatile, joyous, 
 imaginative nature is revealed by bright touches 
 here and there, but the atmosphere of the poem 
 as a whole — ^viewed in this light — is far from 
 being one of gaiety. The reader must not over- 
 look the fact that the sadness expressed in the 
 last two verses was part and parcel of the 
 speaker's feeling from the first. 
 
 Further examples of Narrative Monologue are : 
 
 " The Grandmother," — Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 "The Miller's Daughter," — Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 "Aux Italiens," — Owen Meredith. 
 
 167 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATUKU 
 
 " The Tragedy,"— Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
 
 "Bertha in the Lane," — Ehzabeth Barrett 
 Browning. 
 
 DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE 
 
 In Dramatic Monologue the dramatic relation 
 between the reader and the audience is, in reality, 
 that of one person conversing with another for 
 the audience ; the conversation being, however, 
 all on one side, as what the person addressed says 
 is implied by the repUes of the sole speaker. In 
 the oral rendition of literature of this interpreta- 
 tive form, the audience itself serves as the imag- 
 inary silent party in this conversation ; there- 
 fore, the dramatic relation ietween the reader 
 and the audience in Dramatic Monologue is 
 virtually that of one per son conversing directly with 
 another — all the talking being done on one side. 
 This makes the relation a simple, natural one — 
 one that very frequently exists in daily life. 
 
 No interpretative form except Character Mono- 
 logue allows the reader more nearly to approach 
 literal impersonation than does Dramatic Mono- 
 logue. It is hardly necessary to say that there 
 are Dramatic Monologues and Dramatic Mono- 
 
 i68 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 logues, some allowing a much nearer approach 
 to the actor's realm than others allow. ' ' The 
 IntelKgence Office, "by Beatrice Herford, reqtiires 
 almost literal impersonation: that popular little 
 dialect piece, "Mammy's L'il' Boy," is another 
 out and out Dramatic Monologue where the mean- 
 ing of the lines is largely dependent upon imper- 
 sonation. A typical good-natured "Mammy" 
 coaxes a little child to her, picks it up in her arms, 
 hushes it to sleep, and then — under difficulties — 
 puts it down, asleep, crooning over it as she does 
 so. Here, by virtue of the nature of the selec- 
 tion and its person and tense, the reader, at the 
 moment of saying the words, is hving — not re- 
 living — the action implied in them ; not to respond 
 gesturally would be to fail in interpreting the 
 spirit of this piece, as much as would the use of 
 descriptive gestures in Exalted Address. 
 
 Don't talk to me of parties, Nan; I really can not go; 
 When folks are in affliction they don't go out, 
 
 you know. 
 I have a new brown sash, too; it seems a pity — eh ? 
 That such a dreadful trial should have come just 
 
 yesterday. 
 
 169 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 The play-house Winds are all pulled down as dark 
 
 as it can be 
 It looks so very solemn and so proper, don't you see? 
 And I have a piece of crape pinned on my dolly's 
 
 hat; 
 Tom says it is ridiculous for only just a cat. 
 
 But boys are all so horrid! They always, every one' 
 Delight in teasing little girls and kitties, "just 
 
 for fun. " 
 The way he used to pull her tail — it makes me 
 
 angry now — 
 And seat her up the cherry-tree, to make the 
 
 darling "meow!'" 
 
 I've had her all the summer. One day, away 
 
 last spring, 
 3 heard a frightful barking, and I saw the httle 
 
 thing 
 In the corner of a fence; 't would have made you 
 
 laugh outright 
 To see how every hair stood out : and how^ she 
 
 tried to fight. 
 
 I shooed the dog away, and she jumped upon my 
 
 arm; 
 The pretty creature knew I wouldn't do her any 
 
 harm; 
 I hugged her close, and carried her to mamma, 
 
 and she said 
 She should be my own wee kitty if I'd see that 
 
 she was fed. 
 
 A cunning little dot she was, with silky, soft 
 gray fur; 
 
 170 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITBRATURB 
 
 She'd lie for hours upon my lap, and I could hear 
 
 her purr; 
 And then she'd frolic after when I pulled a string 
 
 about, 
 Or try to catch her tail, or roll a marble in and out. 
 
 Such comfort she has been to me I'm sure no one 
 
 could tell, 
 Unless some other little girl who loves her pussy 
 
 well. 
 I've heard about a Maltese cross; but my dear 
 
 httle kit 
 Was always sweet and amiable, and never cross 
 
 a bit ! 
 
 But oh, last week I missed her !I hunted all around; 
 My darling little pussy-cat was nowhere to be 
 
 found. 
 I knelt and whispered softly, when nobody could 
 
 see ; 
 ' ' Take care of little kitty, j) lease, and bring her 
 
 back to me. " 
 
 I found her lying yesterday behind the lower shed; 
 I thought my heart was broken when I found 
 
 that she was dead. 
 Tom promised me another one ; but even he can 
 
 see 
 No other kitty ever will be just the same to me. 
 
 I can'i go to your party, Nannie. Maccaroons, 
 
 you say ? 
 And ice-cream ? I know I ought to try and not 
 
 give way ; 
 
 171 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OFUTBRATURB 
 
 And I feel it would be doing wrong to disappoint 
 
 you so. 
 Well, if I'm equal to it by to-morrow, I may go! 
 
 — "The Dead Kitten." 
 
 In the oral rendition of this piece, the reader 
 must distinguish between an approximate person- 
 ation of the little girl and a hteraUzing of the in- 
 cidents told by her. In actual experience, even 
 a child making beheve the grief of grown-up peo- 
 ple and having some real grief of her own at the 
 loss of her pet, would not definitely point out 
 ' 'the corner of the fence, " would not show how 
 she "shooed the dog away," nor how the cat 
 "jumped upon her arm." 
 
 Yes, child , I know I'm out of tune ; 
 The light is bad ; the sky is gray : 
 I paint no more this afternoon. 
 So lay your royal gear away. 
 Besides you're moody — chin on hand — 
 I know not what — not in the vein-^ 
 Not hke Anne Bullen, sweet and bland : 
 You sit there smiling in disdain. 
 
 Not like Bluflf Harry's radiant Queen, 
 Unconscious of the coming woe. 
 But rather as she might have been, 
 Preparing for the headman's blow. 
 
 172 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 I see ! I've put you in a miff — 
 Sitting bolt-upright, wrist on wrist. 
 How should you look ? Why, dear, as if — 
 Somehow — as if you'd just been kissed. 
 
 — Thomas Bailey Aldricb. 
 
 These last two verses from the Dramatic 
 Monologue "In an Atelier," afford a good illus- 
 tration of how descriptive gestures may be 
 legitimately used in the expression of the spirit 
 of raillery, as "chin on hand" and "sitting 
 bolt-upright, wrist on wrist. " In actual experience 
 one person bantering another might imitate or 
 even accentuate these positions. 
 
 That's my last Duchess painted on the waU, 
 Looking as if she w^ere alive. I call 
 That piece a wonder, now : Fra Pandolf's hands 
 Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 
 Will't please you sit and look at her ? I said 
 "Fra PandoLf " by design, for never read 
 Strangers hke you that pictured countenance. 
 The depth and passion of its earnest glance, 
 But to myself they turned (since none puts by 
 That curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 
 And seemed as they would ask me if they durst. 
 How such a glance came there ; so, not the first 
 Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not 
 Her husband's presence only, called that spot 
 Of joy into the Duchess' cheek ; perhaps 
 
 173 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 Fra Pandolf chanced to say " Her mantle laps 
 Over my lady's wrist too much," or " Paint 
 Must never hope to reproduce the faint 
 Half -flush that dies along her throat : " such stuff 
 Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 
 For calling up that spot of joy. She had 
 A heart — how shall I say ? — too soon made glad, 
 Too easily impressed ; she liked whate'er 
 She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. 
 Sir, 't was all one ! My favor at her breast, 
 The dropping of the daylight in the West, 
 The bough of cherries some oflBcious fool 
 Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 
 She rode with round the terrace — aU and each 
 Would draw from her alike the approving speech. 
 Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good ! 
 
 but thanked 
 Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 
 My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name 
 With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame 
 This sort of trifling ? Even had you skiU 
 In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will 
 Quite clear to such an one, and say, ' ' Just this 
 Or that in you disgusts me ; here you miss, 
 Or there exceed the mark " — and if she let 
 Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 
 Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, 
 — E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose 
 Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt. 
 Whene'er I passed her ; but who passed without 
 Much the same smile ? This grew ; I gave 
 
 commands ; 
 
 174 
 
INTHRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURB 
 
 Then all smiles stopped together. There she 
 
 stands 
 As if alive. Will't please you rise ? We'U meet 
 The company below, then. I repeat, 
 The Count your master's known munificence 
 Is simple warrant that no just pretence 
 Of mine for dowry wiU be disallowed ; 
 Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed 
 At starting, is my object. Nay, we'U go 
 Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, 
 Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity. 
 Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! 
 " My Last Duchess." — Kobert Browning: 
 
 Further examples of Dramatic Monologue are : 
 
 "Count Grismond," — Robert Browning. [This 
 Dramatic Monologue is largely a narration con- 
 taining direct quotations. Such parts would be 
 treated in rendition much as Dramatic Narrative, 
 told in first person.] 
 
 ' 'Grandma's Attic Treasures, " — Mary D. Brine. 
 
 "The Dead Doll,"— "St. Nicholas." 
 
 "Chiquita," — Francis Brete Harte (Clark's 
 Handbook). 
 
 "The Florentine Juliet," — Susan Ooolidge. 
 
 "Mrs. Tubbs at the Sewing Circle," — Belle Mar- 
 shall Locke. 
 
 175- 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 "Mother and Poet," — Elizabeth Barrett 
 Browning. 
 
 "Andrea Del Sarto," — Eobert Browning. 
 "The Village Seamstress," — Mary E. Wilkins. 
 
 CHARACTER MONOLOGUE 
 
 In Character Monologue the dramatic relation 
 between the speaker or reader and the audience 
 is that of one person talking directly to another ; 
 this, of course, is a simple, natural relation, being 
 the same as in Direct Personal Address. The 
 difficult task for the Character Monologueist is 
 not to maintain a natural relation with his 
 audience, but to get into, and to sustain the 
 character that he would assume. To do this 
 literal impersonation is necessary even to the 
 minutest details of voice and manner. 
 
 If the speaker or reader exaggerates some 
 mannerism, peculiarity or eccentricity of the 
 character he assumes, his work is one form of 
 burlesque; of such nature is much of the cari- 
 cature features of the vaudeville stage. If the 
 speaker or reader "assume the manner and voice 
 of the character or characters" he would present 
 
 176 
 
INTERPRET ATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 with fidelity to the original, his work is legitimate 
 impersonation; some readers have made a 
 specialty of this line of platform entertainment, 
 one well-known woman making quite a reputa- 
 tion by the character portrayal of eminent men — 
 assuming the voice, manner, and similar coats, 
 vests, collars and ties' of the men impersonated, 
 and giving extracts from their lectures and 
 sermons. Character Monologue does not, how- 
 ever, belong to legitimate interpretation of 
 hterature, therefore it will not be further con- 
 sidered. 
 
 DRAMA 
 
 In aU the subdivisions of the Drama the dramatic 
 relation between the reader and the audience is 
 that of one person talking not to but for others. 
 Literature of these interpretative forms — Trag- 
 edy, Comedy, Melodrama, Farce and Burlesque 
 — is conversationally intimate in its nature, but 
 such social sympathy is between the reader and 
 some imaginary person or persons on the stage, 
 and not between himself and the audience. 
 
 While the Drama as a whole is conversationally 
 
 177 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 intimate in its nature, in it are to be found nearly 
 if not quite all of the other InterpretatiTe forms, 
 as an address to an army or populace, Direct 
 Personal Address ; an apostrophe, Impersonal 
 Address ; a prayer, Exalted Address ; a story. 
 Plain or Dramatic Narrative, and many Solil- 
 oquies. Each of these interpretative forms 
 should in oral rendition have its own character- 
 istic treatment, duly related and subordinated to 
 the drama as a whole. 
 
 In no interpretative form of hterature is there 
 such present stress of passion, such intensity and 
 such variation of thought, such immediate dra- 
 matic action, such a presentation of Hf e here and 
 now, as in the Drama. In its oral rendition all 
 this vividness and variety of thought, emotion 
 and action must be presented as nearly true to 
 life as possible ; the reader has certain limitations 
 imposed upon him by virtue of his position as a 
 reader that he cannot transcend. The actor does 
 many things which the reader at most can only 
 suggest. Othello actually kills Desdemona, in 
 seeming, on the stage ; the reader can only reveal 
 by his expression the blind rage and jealousy that 
 
 178 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 prompt this act, and, possibly, by sympathetic 
 gestures suggest the act, but should he attempt ta 
 literalize it by descriptive gesture his interpre- 
 tative work would be absurd. 
 
 In the Drama, as in daily life when people are 
 swayed by emotion or are temperamentally or 
 habitually responsive and alive, emotionally man- 
 ifestive gesture are quite numerous and often 
 wonderfully significant, while descriptive gestures 
 are extremely rare. 
 
 It is impossible within the compass of this book to 
 give such illustrative selections of the sub-divisions 
 of the Drama as would be at all comprehensive 
 or satisfactory, so none are given; moreover, the 
 general familiarity of the reading world with the 
 great dramas make such illustrations unnecessary. 
 
 The writer would further add a word from her 
 own experience with pupils regarding this inter- 
 pretative form. Experience has proven that some 
 people who are inclined to be oracular, stilted, to 
 declaim rather than talk in other interpretative 
 forms of literature, sometimes quickly lose that 
 falseness of expression and become easily natural 
 and sincere when they commence interpreting 
 
 179 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB PORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 the drama; they seem readily to grasp its conver- 
 sationally intimate character and through the 
 dramatic imagination to make the thoughts and 
 feelings of the different characters, approximately 
 at least, their own. 
 
 In concluding this presentation of interpretative 
 forms of literature, the writer would add one 
 word of caution regarding the use of interpreta- 
 tive classifications. She would hesitate to do this 
 — the purport of the caution is so seemingly self- 
 evident — were there not in the Delsarte criteria of 
 expression such a notable illustration of how the 
 primary purpose of a classification may be mis- 
 taken by the very ones who adopt and make use 
 of it. 
 
 Since the introduction of the Delsarte System 
 of Expression into this country, some thirty years 
 ago, its detailed criteria of the expression of the 
 different bodily agents have been taught — not 
 occasionally, but quite universally — by teachers 
 of elocution and expression as expression itself. 
 The means to an end have been mistaken for the 
 end. The standards of measurements of man's 
 mental and emotional states have been taught as 
 
 1 80 
 
INTBRPRBTATIvn FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 technical drills for the representation of the states 
 themselves. As a result, much of the study for 
 oral interpretation of literature has come to be 
 chiefly" a study of the detailed forms of bodily 
 expression; whereas, it should be, primarily, an 
 effort to stimulate and develop the dramatic imagi- 
 nation, to gain the power to relate oneself sympa- 
 thetically to the emotions embodied in the litera- 
 ture to be interpreted — emotions which are the 
 sources of all outward expressions from which 
 criteria are made. 
 
 The caution, then, is, do not mistake the ability 
 to classify literature interpretatively for the 
 ability to interpret it orally. Gaining knowledge 
 of the interpretative forms of literature does not 
 denote any direct increase in one's dramatic ability 
 />e7'se;it does not .directly increase : one's power to 
 express, oraUy, for it does not give better bodily 
 response, better quality of voice, better inflections, 
 tone-color, melody or emphasis. Such knowledge 
 does enable one rationally to use the dramatic 
 power that he possesses and, indirectly, it leads to 
 increase of his dramatic power by putting him in 
 the attitude toward different pieces of literature 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 to see their true artistic possibilities in rendering. 
 It is obvious that to be able readily to recognize 
 the interpretative form of any piece of literature, 
 will do much to insure an intelhgent rendering of 
 the same, but it must not be forgotten that fixed 
 forms can never do away with the necessity of 
 bringing into exercise aU of one's reason, judgment 
 and artistic sensibility in the rendition of any 
 piece of literature. 
 
 182 
 
VII 
 
 READING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 HILE this book is intended especially 
 for public speakers and readers, and 
 for teachers and students of literature, 
 elocution and expression, the idea that 
 it presents is equally practical for the 
 teaching of reading in the different 
 grades of the public schools. 
 Obviously, no attempt should be made to teach 
 classifications of the interpretative forms of litera- 
 ture as classifications to young children, but they 
 should be led to a natural approach to the selec- 
 tions in their reading books from the lower grades 
 up to the time that they commence the study of 
 literature as such; then, they should be taught to 
 distinguish the significance of the different inter- 
 pretative forms as they meet them and, in general, 
 the rational and artistic treatment of each in oral 
 rendition. Were such teaching of the oral inter- 
 
 183 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 pretation of literature to prevail in our schools, a 
 radical change would take place in the public 
 estimate of the educational value of elocution. 
 Moreover, such advancement in the teaching of 
 literature in the public school would ultimately 
 be of the greatest benefit to professional readers 
 and teachers of elocution and expression. Those 
 who interpret hterature would receive greater 
 appreciation, and those who burlesque noble liter- 
 ature by their seZ/-presentation in voice and 
 gesture would be compelled to change their stan- 
 dards — or their profession. When general audien- 
 ces know why a reading is good or bad, they wiU 
 refuse to accept that which is fundamentally 
 false and pernicious. 
 
 The public school, unquestionably, is the 
 place to commence any movement for improve- 
 ment in the general status of the oral interpreta- 
 tion of literature. It is here that wrong con- 
 ceptions regarding the .educational and social 
 value of, and the intellectual and aesthetic 
 pleasure obtainable from, the oral interpretation 
 of literature are principally formed ; it is here 
 that many people form a prejudice against "read- 
 
 184 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OF UTBRATURB 
 
 ing aloud " which they never overcome in after 
 years. Such prejudice against, or indifference 
 to, literature in the young simply means that this 
 most human of all subjects has not been presented, 
 to them in an attractive, live way. Children are 
 instinctively sympathetic with stories, adventures,, 
 investigations, explorations, inventions, historical 
 happenings, nature's marvels, with all the wealth 
 that literature contains, provided that the subject 
 matter is not beyond their powers of comprehen- 
 sion and that the manner in which it is presented 
 is such as to hold their interest. As the average 
 reading lesson is unmeaningly droned or rattled 
 off by the average boy or girl in the public school, 
 who stands facing the wall with his or her back 
 to the feUow students, and who reads into rather 
 than from the book, it is no wonder that little or 
 no enthusiasm is aroused either in the reader or 
 in the hearers, and that students early come to 
 have a contemptuous regard for the reading 
 class, escaping from it at the earliest date allow- 
 able. 
 
 From the first attempt to read in school, 
 children should be taught that good reading is 
 
 185 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP UTBRATURB 
 
 good talking ; that one always reads to somebody 
 just as one always talks to somebody ; and, 
 further, that a boy or girl looks at the person or 
 persons to whom he or she speaks. To naake the 
 relation between the child who is reading and the 
 children who are listening a natural one, the one 
 reading should ./Voot the first lesson face the class; 
 this one thing would do much to overcome self- 
 consciousness on "Ehetorical Day" and on aU 
 occasions of speaking in public in future years. 
 Even when a little child has to speU out ' ' T-h-e 
 b-o-y h-a-s a d-o-g," he should be taught 
 that that is only finding out what he is going to 
 read, that it is preparing his lesson, and that the 
 reading is when he looks up from the book and 
 tells his class-mates "The boy has a dog." 
 
 Without mentioning classification to children 
 they could easily be led to distinguish at a glance 
 the main differences in such interpretative forms 
 as are commonly found in Second, Third and 
 Fourth Grade Eeaders. 
 
 [Dramatic Narrative and Direct Personal Address are the 
 two interpretative forms most used in reading books for young 
 children. One of the Third Readers widely used lo-day con- 
 tains thirty-five selections in the form of Dramatic Narrative, 
 twenty-eight in that of Direct Personal Address, one in that 
 
 186 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 of Impersonal Address and one in that of the Prama. A 
 following of the Socratic method on the part of the teacher 
 would be productive of marked results in a very short time. 
 First, though, the teachers must themselves appreciate these 
 differences and must know, in a general way at least, how the 
 various interpretative forms should be treated in oral rendi- 
 tion. With teachers thus prepared and in sympathy with the 
 work, the rest would be comparatively easy.] 
 
 1. On the day that Benjamin Franklin was 
 seven years old, his mother and brothers gave 
 him a few pennies. 
 
 ' ' What shall I do with these coppers, mother ? " 
 he said. " Shall I keep them in my pocket ? " 
 
 2. " You may spend them for something that 
 you like," said his mother. 
 
 "And may I have more when these are gone? " 
 he asked. 
 
 "The Story of a Whistle."— Baldwin's Third Yenr 
 Reader. 
 
 The above extract is Dramatic Narrative. To 
 establish the right relation between the reader, 
 the literature and the audience — the reader's 
 classmates — the teacher should question some- 
 thing as follows : ' ' Carl, what are you going to 
 teU us to-day ? Are you going to describe how 
 something is made, or how something grows, or 
 how some animal or insect lives, or are you going 
 to tell us what you think about something, or 
 are you going to tell us a story about something 
 
 187 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 that happened a long time ago?" Carl and 
 all the other children would immediately give 
 the right answer, "A story." "All right, it is 
 to be a story. Is it a story just about things and 
 about people, or do the people talk, also ? " These 
 questions would lead the child to discern quickly 
 the kind of piece with which he had to deal ; 
 when the direct quotations are reached, the 
 teacher should help the child to maintain a right 
 interpretative relation by asking, " Who is 
 talking? Are you or is some one else? If you are, 
 talk to us in your own way: if some one else is, 
 then tell us what he says just as you would teU 
 us that your chum Charlie, said so and so." 
 Thus the child is led to distinguish between liter- 
 ature written in the first person and that written 
 in the third person, and, moreover, is led to inter- 
 pret each in the right spirit from his own exjper- 
 ience. Questions such as, ' 'When did this happen ? 
 Is it happening now, or did it happen last week or 
 perhaps years ago ? " would soon develop in the 
 child an appreciation of the difference between 
 literature written in the present tense and that 
 written in the past tense. With very little guid- 
 
 i88 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 ing of the right sort by the teacher, even quite 
 young children would differentiate correctly be- 
 tween these tenses in reading: they are naturally 
 dramatic and almost instinctively give the right 
 interpretation to lines which they understand and 
 in which they are interested. 
 
 This is the way the morning dawns : 
 
 Eosy tints on flowers and trees, 
 
 Winds that wake the birds and bees, 
 
 Dewdrops on the fields and lawns — 
 
 This is the way the morning dawns. 
 
 "A Summer Day."— Baldwin's Third Grade Reader. 
 
 The above extract is Plain Narrative in poetry. 
 Poetry even when it deals with well-known sub- 
 jects is a little more difficult for young children 
 to comprehend than is prose because its style of 
 expression is unfamiliar to them. Similar ques- 
 tions to those asked in the previous extract might 
 not immediately bring the correct answer. If not, 
 then the teacher's tact and ingenuity should be 
 brought into play; by the right question, the 
 child can invariably be led to discover for himself 
 what relation the literature imposes upon him as 
 a reader. 
 
 189 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 1. There are a great many kinds of ants — so 
 many that I will not try to name them. In some 
 ways they are like bees. They live together and 
 work together, just as bees do. But they never 
 make honey, and they do not build cells. 
 
 "Ants andTbeir Ways."— Baldwin's Third Grade Reader. 
 
 This extract is Direct Personal Address. The 
 right questions would quicky lead a child to 
 see that he or she was talking out direct from 
 him or her self; thus the right primary relation 
 between the reader, the literature and the 
 audience would be estabhshed. 
 
 Children could also be led to recognize and to 
 express, at least approximately, the emotional 
 atmosphere of selections by such questions as, 
 "Is what you are telling us serious? Or, is it 
 funny? Or, is it sad? Or, is it very much in 
 earnest, just as you are when you say something 
 to which you want everybody to listen ? " 
 
 If it should be objected that children do not 
 
 ^sufficiently comprehend their reading lessons to 
 
 imderstand such order of questions as are here 
 
 suggested, the answer is that they should then be 
 
 given such lessons as they can grasp. To require 
 
 190 
 
INTERPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 children to say words the purport of which they 
 do not understand, nor their dramatic significance, 
 is one of the surest ways to create a distaste for 
 "reading aloud." 
 
 191 
 
VIII 
 
 MAKING AN ORATOR 
 
 By Stephen Crane 
 
 From " Whilomville Stories," by permission of Harper 
 Brothers, Publishers. 
 
 Copyright^ iQoo^ by Harper Bros. 
 
 N the school at Whilomville it was the 
 habit, when children had progressed 
 to a certain class, to have them 
 devote Friday afternoon to what was 
 called elocution. This was in the 
 piteously ignorant belief that orators 
 were thus made. By process of school 
 law, unfortunate boys and girls were dragged up 
 to address their feUow-scholars in the literature 
 of the mid-century. Probably the children who 
 were most capable of expressing themselves, the 
 children who were most sensitive to the power of 
 speech, suffered the most wrong. Little block- 
 heads who could learn eight lines of conventional 
 
 ig2 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 poetry, and could get up and spin it- rapidly at 
 their classmates, did not undergo a single pang. 
 The plan operated mainly to agonize many 
 children permanently against arising to speak 
 their thought to fellow-creatures. 
 
 Jimmie Trescott had an idea that by exhibition 
 of undue ignorance he could escape from being 
 promoted into the first class room which exacted 
 such penalty from its inmates. He preferred to 
 dwell in a less classic shade rather than venture 
 into a domain where he was obliged to perform a 
 certain duty which struck him as being worse 
 than death. However, willi-nilly, he was some- 
 how sent ahead into the place of torture. 
 
 Every Friday at least ten of the little children 
 had to mount the stage beside the teacher's desk 
 and babble something which none of them under- 
 stood. This was to make them orators. If it 
 had been ordered that they should croak hke 
 frogs, it would have advanced most of them just 
 as far towards oratory. 
 
 Alphabetically Jimmie Trescott was near the 
 end of the list of victims, but his time was none 
 the less inevitable. "Tanner, Timmens, Trass, 
 
 193 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 Trescott — " He saw his downfall approaching. 
 He was passive to the teacher while she drove 
 into his mind the incomprehensible lines of ' ' The 
 Charge of the Light Brigade: " 
 
 "Half a league, half a league, 
 Half a league onward — " 
 
 He had no conception of a league. If in th6 
 ordinary course of life somebody had told him 
 that he was half a league from home, he might 
 have been frightened that half a league was fifty 
 miles ; but he struggled manfully with the valley 
 of death and a mystic six hundred, who were 
 performing something there which was very fine, 
 he had been told. He learned all the verses. 
 
 But as his own Friday afternoon approached 
 he was moved to make known to his family that 
 a dreadful disease was upon him, and was hkely 
 at any time to prevent him from going to his 
 beloved school. 
 
 On the great Friday when the children of his 
 initials were to speak their pieces Dr. Trescott 
 was away from home, and the mother of the boy 
 was alarmed beyond measure at Jimmie's curious 
 
 194 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OP UTBRATURB 
 
 illness, which caused him to lie on the rug in 
 front of the fire and groan cavernously. 
 
 She bathed his feet in hot mustard water until 
 they were lobster-red. She also placed a mustard 
 plaster on his chest. 
 
 He announced that these remedies did him no 
 good at all — no good at all. With an air of 
 'martyrdom he endured a perfect downpour of 
 motherly attention all that day. Thus the first 
 Friday was passed in safety. 
 
 With singular patience he sat before the fire in 
 the dining-room and looked at picture-books, 
 only complaining of pain when he suspected his 
 mother of thinking that he was getting better. 
 
 The next day being Saturday and a holiday, he • 
 was miraculously delivered from the arms of dis- 
 ease, and went forth to play, a blatantly healthy 
 boy. 
 
 He had no further attack until Thursday night 
 of the next week, when he announced that he 
 felt very, very poorly. The mother was already 
 chronically alarmed over the condition of her son, 
 but Dr. Trescott asked him questions which 
 denoted some incredulity. On the third Friday 
 
 195 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVB FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 Jimmie was dropped at the door of the school 
 from the doctor's buggy. The other children, 
 notably those who had already passed over the 
 mountain of distress, looked at him with glee, 
 seeing in him another lamb brought to butchery. 
 Seated at his desk in the school-room, Jimmie 
 sometimes remembered with dreadful distinctness 
 every line of "The Charge of the Light Brigade," 
 and at other times his mind was utterly empty 
 of it. Geography, arithmetic, and spelling — 
 usually great tasks — quite rolled off him. His 
 mind was dwelling with terror upon the time 
 when his name should be called and he was 
 obliged to go up to the platform, turn, bow, and 
 recite his message to his feUow-men. 
 
 Desperate expedients for delay came to him. 
 If he could have engaged the services of a real 
 pain, he would have been glad. But steadily, 
 inexorably, the minutes marched on towards his 
 great crisis, and all his plans for escape blended 
 into a mere panic fear. 
 
 The maples outside were defeating the weaken- 
 ing rays of the afternoon sun, and in the 
 shadowed school-room had come a stillness, in 
 
 196 
 
INTBRPRBTATIvn FORMS OFLITBRATURB 
 
 which, nevertheless, one could feel the com- 
 placence of the little pupils who had already 
 passed through the flames. They were calmly 
 prepared to recognize as a spectacle the torture 
 of others. 
 
 Little Johnnie Tanner opened the ceremony. 
 He stamped heavily up to the platform, and 
 bowed in such a manner that he almost fell 
 down. He blurted out that it would ill befit him 
 to sit silent whUe the name of his fair Ireland 
 was being reproached, and he appealed to the 
 gallant soldier before him if every British battle- 
 field was not sown with the bones of sons of the 
 Emerald Isle. He was also heard to say that he 
 had hstened with deepening surprise and scorn to 
 the insinuation of the honorable member from 
 North Glenmorganshire that the loyalty of the 
 Irish regiments in her Majesty's service could be 
 questioned. To what purpose, then, he asked 
 had the blood of Irishmen flowed on a hundred 
 fields? To what purpose had Irishmen gone to 
 their death with bravery and devotion in every 
 part of the world where the victorious flag of 
 England had been carried ? If the honorable 
 
 197 
 
INTBRPRBTATIVE FORMS OF LITBRATURB 
 
 member for North Grlenmorganshire insisted upon 
 construing a mere pothouse row between soldiers 
 in DubUn into a grand treachery to the colors and 
 to her Majesty's uniform, then it was time for 
 Ireland to think bitterly of her dead sons, whose 
 graves now marked every step of England's prog- 
 ress, and yet who could have their honors 
 stripped from them so easily by the honorable 
 member for North Glenmorganshire. Further- 
 more, the honorable member for North Glen- 
 morganshire — 
 
 It is needless to say that httle Johnnie Tanner's 
 language made it exceedingly hot for the honor- 
 able member for North Glemnorganshire. But 
 Johnnie was not angry. He was only in haste. 
 He finished the honorable member for North 
 Glenmorganshire in what might be called a gallop. 
 
 Susie Timmens then went to the platform, and 
 w^ith a face as pale as death whisperingly reiterated 
 ■that she would be Queen of the May. The child 
 represented there a perfect picture of unnecessary 
 suffering. Her small lips were quite blue, and 
 her eyes, opened wide, stared with a look of hor- 
 ror at nothing. 
 
 198 
 
INTERPRET ATIVB PORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 The phlegmatic Trass boy, with his moon face 
 only expressing peasant parentage, calmly spoke 
 some undeniably true words concerning destiny. 
 
 In his seat Jimmie Trescott was going half-bhnd 
 with fear of his approaching doom. He wished 
 that the Trass boy would talk forever about des- 
 tiny. If the school-house had taken fire he 
 thought that he would have felt simply relief. 
 
 Anything was better. Death amid the flames 
 was preferable to a recital of "The Charge of the 
 Light Brigade." 
 
 But the Trass boy finished his remarks about 
 destiny in a very short time. Jimmie heard the 
 teacher caU his name, and he felt the whole world 
 look at him. He did not know how he made his 
 way to the stage. Parts of him seems to be of 
 lead, and at the same time parts of him seemed 
 to be light as air, detached. His face had gone 
 as pale as had been the face of Susie Timmens. 
 He was simply a chUd in torment; that is all 
 there is to be said specifically about it; and to 
 intelligent people the exhibition would have been 
 not more edifying than a dog-fight. 
 
 199 
 
INTERPRET ATIVE PORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 He bowed precariously, choked, made an inar- 
 ticulate sound, and then he suddenly said, 
 
 "Half a leg—" 
 ^'League," said the teacher, coolly. 
 
 "Half a leg— " 
 
 "League," said the teacher. 
 
 "League," repeated Jimmie, wildly. 
 
 "Half a league, haK a league, half a league on- 
 ward." 
 
 He paused here and looked wretchedly at the 
 teacher. 
 
 "Half a league," he muttered — "half a 
 league — " 
 
 He seemed likely to keep continuing this phrase 
 indefinitely, so after a time the teacher said, 
 "Well, goon." 
 
 "Half a league," responded Jimmie. 
 
 The teacher had the opened book before her, 
 and she read from it: 
 
 " 'All in the valley of Death 
 Kode the—" 
 
 "Gro on," she concluded. 
 
 Jimmie said, 
 
INTBRPRETATIVB FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 " AU in the valley of Death 
 Eode the — the — the — " 
 
 He cast a glance of supreme appeal upon the 
 teacher, and breathlessly whispered, "Eode the 
 what ?" 
 
 The young woman flushed with indignation to 
 the roots of her hair. 
 
 " Eode the six hundred," 
 she snapped at him. 
 
 The class was arustle with delight at this cruel 
 display. They were no better than a Eoman 
 populace in Nero's time. 
 
 Jimmie started off again: 
 
 " Half a leg — league, haK a league, half a league 
 
 onward. 
 All in the valley of death rode the six hundred. 
 Forward — forward — forward — " 
 
 " The Light Brigade," suggested the teacher, 
 sharply. 
 
 " The Light Brigade," said Jimmie. He was 
 about to die of the ignoble pain of his position. 
 
 As for Tennyson's lines, they had all gone 
 grandly out of his mind, leaving it a whited 
 wall. 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OP LITERATURE 
 
 The teacher's indignation was still rampant. 
 She looked at the miserable wretch before her 
 with an angry stare. 
 
 ' ' You stay in after school and learn that all 
 over again, " she commanded. ' ' And be prepared 
 to speak it next Friday. I am astonished at you, 
 Jimmie. Go to your seat. " 
 
 He fled back to his seat without hearing the 
 low- toned gibes of his schoolmates. 
 
 Jimmie of course did not know that on this day 
 there had been laid for him the foundation of a 
 finished incapacity for public speaking which 
 would be his until he died. 
 
 This " Whilomville Story" seems an especially 
 appropriate closing for this book which has been 
 written with the hope that it may lead to a keen- 
 r appreciation of the falseness of many of the 
 prevailing methods in the oral interpretation of 
 literature, and also many indicate a truer approach 
 
INTERPRETATIVE FORMS OF LITERATURE 
 
 to literature for interpreters. Mr. Crane in "Mak- 
 ing an Orator" not only presents with truthful pen 
 the futile attempts made in the name of ' ' Ehe- 
 toricals" to interpret literature in the public 
 schools but he also suggests the disastrous eifects 
 upon very many children of such unpedagogic 
 attempts. 
 
 Seldom is a pedagogic principle set forth in 
 concrete example in such delightful style. The 
 graphic description of this day of torment will 
 recall to many men and women like early exper- 
 iences of their own. Because of this wide personal 
 appeal the story will doubtless prove a favorite 
 reading with popular audiences. It is hoped that 
 it may frequently be included in the program of 
 readers, for it could scarcely fail to cause earnest, 
 thinking parents to question if similar inflictions 
 were being put upon their children. Thus, possr 
 ibly, some future Jimmie Trescotts may be saved 
 from having laid for them in the public school 
 ' ' the foundation of a finished incapacity for 
 public speaking " 
 
 203 
 
I -I