Take, for instance, Browning’s exquisite short poem above. What good does it do the student to engage his attention with Browning’s style, his verse forms, etc.? To him the matter of prime importance is that he shall know what Browning meant.
This is the vital question in all reading.
That literature which is a mere collection of fine words, beautifully arranged in perfect sentences, is “as sounding brass and a clanging cymbal.” To have any real significance it must be surcharged with high, lofty, pure, stirring human emotion; and to feel the same emotion that the writer felt as he penned poem, essay, novel, story or drama is the aim of every intelligent and thoughtful reader. One of the best possible ways of accomplishing this is by reading aloud—even when one is alone. One writer boldly affirms that we can never know the vital, spiritual message of a writer until we have put his words upon our tongue and sent them winging away in speech, freighted with the meaning that has reached our minds.
In reading carefully this poem of Browning, observe if the very nature of the theme does not demand the various modulations of the human voice to give it adequate interpretation. Repeat the first two lines, thinking of their purpose, and then see if you do not feel somewhat of an emotional thrill which must be akin to that which was felt by Browning when he thought of his great teacher, that marvelous poet, Shelley.
Is it possible really to get the heart throb of this poem unless we sing it out through the voice? The major portion of time spent in literary study should be through oral interpretation. Let a pupil read to you, and instantly you can detect whether or not he understands what he is reading. Corson said he believed the time is coming when examinations in literature will be wholly oral. He goes on to say:
Reading must supply all the deficiencies of written or printed language. It must give life to the letter. How comparatively little is addressed to the eye, in print or manuscript, of what has to be addressed to the ear by the reader! There are no indications of tone, quality of voice, inflection, pitch, time, or any other of the vocal functions demanded for a full intellectual and spiritual interpretation. A poem is not truly a poem until it is voiced by an accomplished reader, who has adequately assimilated it—in whom it has, to some extent, been born again, according to his individual spiritual constitution and experiences. The potentialities, so to speak, of the printed poem, must be vocally realized. What Shelley, in his lines “To a Lady, With a Guitar,” says of what the revealings of the instrument depend upon, may be said with equal truth of the revealings of every true poem; it
“Will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit