EXPRESSION AND ENERGY.
The following observations on Expression and Energy are taken from Vandenhoff’s “Plain System of Elocution:”
EXPRESSION.
“Expression is the modulating or regulating the organ of the voice to tones of gentleness or force, according to the nature and degree of feeling, or passion, expressed in words. Expression is the natural language of emotion. It is, in Elocution, to a certain extent, a vocal imitation of passion. But this must be done without “aggravating the voice” (as Bottom has it.) It is a grace which requires the nicest management; and cannot be achieved but with the best cultivation of ear and voice; in order to catch and re-echo the tones of the heart to the ears and hearts of others.
“Expression, therefore, is a refinement on Intonation: they go hand in hand: we cannot think of the one without the other. Intonation gives the voice volume and power; expression uses and adopts it to the feeling of the moment.
ENERGY.
“Energy is intimately allied to the two preceding graces of Elocution; to which it adds force, intensity, and earnestness. As Expression is variety of Intonation, Energy may be called the Emphasis of Expression.
“It is the life, the soul, the animating spirit. Without it, the speaker may be correct, and even agreeable, by a due observance of rule; but if he lack energy, he will be listened to without interest; his voice will fall powerless on the ear, and neither “awake the senses,” nor “stir the blood.”
“Energy, it is true, depends somewhat on individual temperament and constitution. But even where natural or physical energy is deficient, an energetic manner may be acquired by practice and exercise under judicious direction; just as the muscular powers may be improved, and bodily vigor increased, even in a feeble frame, under a course of training and well-regulated exercise.
“Even in narration, what force, what reality can be given to a description by a speaker who, as it were, throws himself into the scene, and by the vivacity and energy of his delivery brings the action graphically before your eyes, hurries you into the heat of it, and makes you feel as if personally engaged in what is so stirringly related to you as in that beautiful description, in Shakspeare’s Henry IV., of the gallant Prince Henry and his comrades armed for battle:
“All furnish’d, all in arms,
Glitt’ring in golden coats like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry,—with his beaver on,
His cuises on his thighs, gallantly arm’d,—
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship!
“Unless this description, full of poetic imagination and coloring as it is, be delivered with warmth, energy, and a tone of enthusiasm, it will fall very short of its due impression; and thus the poet will be deprived, by the speaker’s coldness, of the full appreciation, by the hearer, of the exquisite beauty of the picture.
“But the force of his elocution must be greatly increased, and the expression must be changed, become impassioned, and raised almost to fierceness, to produce the full effect of Hotspur’s heroic and inspiring answer: which breaths the highest enthusiasm of confident and daring valor, undaunted resolution, and impatient thirst of glory.
“It must therefore be marked with all the energy that the reader can command.
HOTSPUR’S EAGERNESS FOR BATTLE.
Let them come!
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war,
All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them!
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,
And yet not ours! Come, let me take my horse,
Which is to bear me like a thunderbolt
Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales:
Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,
Meet, and ne’er part till one drop down a corse!
“Thus we see that Intonation, Energy, and Expression are kindred graces: united and embodied in full force and with just discrimination, they reach the climax of the power of Elocution, the acmé of its art—Passion.
“In conclusion, I take leave to add, that I shall indeed feel proud if this feeble attempt of mine may have the effect of awaking the reader’s interest, exciting, and in some degree aiding him in the cultivation of an art, on which the Orator’s success so much depends.”