LUE OF ORAL READING IN THE INTERPRETATION AND APPRECIATION OF
LITERATURE

1. To the reader himself. Poetical literature is akin to music. Poetry
was originally sung by the minstrel, and the thought and feeling were
communicated to the audience solely by the ear. The study of poetry by
the eye is artificial, modern, and contrary to our hereditary instincts.
We should not argue that the best way to appreciate music is found in
following the symbols on the music sheet. It is only the highly educated
musician who can imagine the delights of music by an examination of the
written text. To some degree, it is the same with poetry. The music of
the words and the appropriateness of the rhythm cannot be fully
perceived by merely silent reading. The eye alone would never detect the
exquisite music of such a poem as _Hide and Seek_, Third Reader, p. 50,
or _Break, break, break_, p. 201. Nor could it perceive the suitability
of the rhythm to the theme, as exhibited in _How They Brought the Good
News from Ghent to Aix_, Fourth Reader, p. 351. In this poem, we can
hear in the rhythm the hoof beats of the horses as they gallop along.
How often have we felt a new meaning and appropriateness that our voice
alone has suggested!

2. To the listeners. The contagious nature of emotion has already been
pointed out. The good reader, by his sympathetic and expressive
rendering of the poem, may reveal to his listeners depths of feeling,
the existence of which they had not before suspected. We have often been
thrilled by a new emotion, upon hearing a familiar passage read by
another.

Every teacher should be a good reader. His tone of voice, his movement,
his gestures are the signs by which the pupils interpret his emotional
attitude. If he is not already a good reader, he should bend all his
energies to become one. Persevering practice, attention to mechanical
features, such as distinct articulation, pausing, flexibility of voice,
and, above all, a sympathetic appreciation of the author's thought and
feeling, will soon convert a poor reader into a good one. He will soon
find that his voice will accommodate itself insensibly in pitch, tone,
and movement to the changing emotions of the poem. The delight of the
lesson will be greatly enhanced where the reader lends to the rhyme of
the poet the music of his voice.

The reading reveals the general thought of the poem. In simpler poems,
the pupils will recognize in the reading the relationship and