How to Teach Reading in the Public Schools

by S. H. Clark

Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves

Slake their parch’d throats with sugar’d mulberries—

In single file they move and stop their breath,

For fear they should dislodge the o’erhanging snows—

So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.

The reader must also bear in mind that from the very beginning of each picture the atmosphere of joy and fear respectively must be in the mind, and must never be lost sight of under any circumstances.

Sometimes the atmosphere is modified by the fact that the speaker is quoting the words of another person, and then it is often a matter of the most subtle analysis to determine the extent to which the quoted words will modify the atmosphere of the reader, whether speaking in his own person or in the person of another.

There are two kinds of literature that must be considered in this connection. First, that class in which the reader tells the story in his own person. Second, when the reading is a personation throughout. An example of the first class is The Idylls of the King; and of the second, the “Instigation” speech of Cassius in Julius Caesar. The principle governing atmosphere applies equally and in the same way to both kinds of selections. The knowledge of this fact will often be valuable to the reader.

We get a good example in the “Instigation” speech, where Cassius tells Brutus that Caesar, when he had a fever, cried, “‘Give me some drink, Titinius,’ as a sick girl.” The whole matter of atmosphere, as far as quoted words are concerned, will be made clear by a study of this simple passage. Cassius is so exercised over the success of Caesar and his own consequent humiliation, that his scorn and rage are well-nigh boundless. As the torrent of his emotion rushes forth, is it not entirely inconsistent with our knowledge of human nature to suppose that that torrent would be so impeded or arrested when Cassius came to the above words, that he would stop to reproduce the actual manner and tones of Caesar? What Cassius probably does is to suggest something of the effeminate manner of Caesar enveloped in Cassius’ own atmosphere of bitterest loathing and contempt. One will be helped in work of this kind by asking himself the question, What is the atmosphere of the speaker? Then, having determined this, he must next make up his mind, through his knowledge of human nature, to what extent this atmosphere is modified by the quoted words that are introduced into the body of the story. He may be assisted in determining this by putting a second question to himself, Is what the quoted words convey, or the manner in which they are conveyed, of the greater importance? This is well illustrated in King Robert of Sicily. It makes no difference in this particular poem how the sexton uttered the words, “Who is there?” and, consequently, it would be a mistake to give them any very significant atmosphere. As a matter of fact, the words are really equivalent to indirect discourse; the expression would convey exactly the same meaning to the listener if read, Asking who was within. The following from King Lear is full of suggestiveness in this connection. We recall that Kent has sent a gentleman to Cordelia to tell her of the condition of her father. Later in the drama, Kent meets the gentleman, and from him gets the story of the manner in which Cordelia received the sad news of her father’s suffering. How truly ridiculous it would be for the gentleman to imitate the manner of Cordelia! The psychological explanation of what happens is probably this: As he relates the story to Kent, the tearful face and voice of Cordelia come into his mind, and, since there is always in human nature a tendency to become that which one describes, something of the manner of Cordelia will be suggested in the voice of the speaker; but let us bear in mind that the imitation is not intentional and detailed, but instinctive and suggestive only. It is not meant that the reader is not conscious of what he is doing, but that the gentleman (to use a concrete illustration) is not consciously imitating Cordelia. The artistic reader in reproducing this scene is conscious of what he is doing, but consciously sympathetic, not imitative:

Kent. Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?