Fluency: Learning to Speak Shakespeare
Introduction
Shakespeare’s text is like music— it is written to be heard. But getting Shakespeare’s words to issue forth like music is, for most adolescents and their teachers, a challenge. The fluent reader, according to the late Jeanne Chall, possesses the ability “to unglue from print,” to read aloud with clarity, rapidity, and conviction (Curtis). This lesson provides teachers and students with a framework for learning to speak Shakespeare’s words with greater clarity and conviction.
Objectives
To explore the sound and meaning of a Shakespearean speech or sonnet; to clarify meaning through definition and paraphrase; to stress, or scan, the text for meter, action, and meaning; to speak the text with appropriate vocal stress and intonation; to plan a sound track for the speech.
Lesson Sequence
Step 1: Constructing a personal sound inventory
Macbeth rants that life is “full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing,” (5.5.30-31) but in this lesson students will speak and listen to words for the ways in which sound can be significant. The Tempest is a play rich in sound, and asking adolescents to incorporate the sounds that soothe them can be a way for them to take ownership of a speech or scene.
Before reading, share with students your own “sounds and sweet airs, that give delight” — a heartbeat, a favorite musical instrument, the inflection of a loved one’s voice, the cadence of a rainstorm, the rustle of silk. Ask students to construct a personal sound inventory by listing their own sweet and soothing sounds.
Step 2: Exploring Sound
Give students a list of words (preferably from the speech/sonnet itself). Have students practice sounding and marking the stressed and unstressed syllables. For Caliban’s speech in 3.2, “Be not afeard…” I begin with this list:
- isle
- a-feard
- de-light
- twang-ling
- in-stru-ments
- me-thought
For an excellent exercise in prescansion, see Chapter 3 of Accent on Meter by Joseph Powell and Mark Halperin.
Choral Readings: Distribute copies of a Shakespearean speech or sonnet, enlarged and double-spaced (see the Speaking Caliban’s Speech handout). Read the speech aloud in a variety of ways several times to gain familiarity with it: for example, one student reads to a punctuation mark, then a second student continues; one student reads to the end of a line, then a second student reads the next line, etc.; males read the first sentence, then females read the second sentence and so on, until the speech has been spoken repeatedly.
Metrical Stress: Now that students have practiced hearing stressed and unstressed syllables in individual words and have read the text chorally, they are ready to scan it line by line for meter. Distribute a copy of the text with the stressed and unstressed syllables already marked.
Even if some of the lines are not regular (5 stressed and 5 unstressed syllables, for example), the overall effect of speaking the text metrically may be, as Pritner and Colaianni, the authors of How to Speak Shakespeare, say, “a mind-numbing sing-song” (30). So why bother exploring meter?
The first reason is because, like the proverbial mountain, it’s there. But there are other, better reasons for exploring the rhythmical patterns in the text. Students may be interested to hear that iambic pentameter mimics the rhythm of the human heart; furthermore, Powell and Halperin report that the length of a ten-syllable line is approximately the amount of text a speaker can comfortably say in one breath! Finally, the acoustics of a Shakespearean line can convey and enhance meaning, especially if we pay attention to the places where it becomes irregular. In his essay, “The Play of Phrase and Line,” George T. Wright explores the many ways in which Shakespeare energized metrical conventions and made blank verse sound more natural by experimenting with variations in stress, pause, and sentence length.
My experience with adolescents has shown that reading and speaking text metrically can preview its meaning and mood. If students have played with the text at the level of its stressed and unstressed syllables, they already know which monosyllabic words and word parts are being emphasized. This in itself can help them grasp meaning.
Step 3: Clarifying Meaning
Now is the time to check for vocabulary comprehension. Discuss the words that students do not know using context clues, a good dictionary, or a lexicon.
In the white space above each line, instruct students to write a paraphrase of each line. This can be done together, in small groups, or independently, depending on the students’ level of skill. Share and compare paraphrases.
Step 4: Exploring Sound and Meaning
Grammatical Stress: Verbs and nouns are the muscle and bone of English, and arguably the most important words in a line of verse. Identifying the action verbs and nouns in a speech or sonnet brings us closer to the power and meaning of the speech.
Line by line, re-scan the text, double-underlining or color-coding the action verbs. Practice speaking the speech/sonnet aloud, stressing the action verbs.
Line by line, re-scan the text, single-underlining or color-coding in a different color the nouns. Practice speaking the text aloud, placing primary stress on the verbs and secondary stress on the nouns.
Speaking text grammatically, stressing the verbs and nouns, eliminates the “mind-numbing” effects of metrical stress and brings us much closer to a meaningful, fluent speaking of the text.
What do we mean by stressing nouns and verbs? Most of us take this to mean saying them louder than the words around them. But how else can we stress a word? “Think,” write Pritner and Colaianni, “of all the ways to make a word stand out” (35).
Brainstorm with students for ways to stress words. Some possibilities include:
- Volume: Speaking a word in a range from soft to loud
- Pitch: Speaking a word in a range from low to high-pitched
- Pace: Varying the rate of speed with which a word, phrase, or line is spoken
- Pause: Hesitating before or after a word or phrase is spoken
- Tone: Conveying attitude or emotion
Have students experiment with these possibilities, guided by their advanced understanding of what the words and lines mean, as well as the context and emotional sub-text of speech/sonnet.
Step 5: Exploring Sound, Meaning, and Expression
Rhetorical Stress: This, alas, is the “art” part, and therefore not necessary for all students to practice. But if your students are particularly motivated to pursue a dramatic reading, provide them with an advanced framework.
According to Powell and Halperin, rhetorical stresses in a line of verse “tend to occur on monosyllabic words that carry most of the meaning” (20). Since meaning is rarely carried by such monosyllabic words as pronouns, articles, and prepositions, they are generally not stressed. Monosyllabic verbs, nouns, and modifiers are the front-runners for rhetorical stress.
The authors of How to Speak Shakespeare provide a useful and streamlined guide to this advanced level of oral expression in “Step Three: Celebrate the Poetry” (51-66):
- Let yourself be guided by the original punctuation (found in the Folio and quartos).
- Play with repeated sounds (alliteration, assonance, repeated words) but “let rhyme take care of itself” (60) lest it overpower everything else.
- Amplify “explaining” words/phrases and contrasting words/phrases.
Applications
As your students read Shakespeare’s play, encourage them to apply what they have learned about speaking Shakespeare by memorizing and reciting a favorite speech or soliloquy from the assigned play. There is an excellent framework for speech explication in Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching Henry IV Part 1, Lesson 12.
On p. 92 of the Cambridge School Tempest, Rex Gibson suggests that students speak Caliban’s speech with frequent pauses, during which they produce the sounds that Caliban suggests. As an extension of this, I encourage students to experiment not only with sounds natural to an island but with the sounds from their personal sound inventory. I assign them to write directorial commentary for both the line delivery and a soundtrack that reflects their understanding of Caliban and their own vocabulary of sweet and soothing sounds. The results can be enchanting!
Works Cited
Curtis, Mary E. “Adolescent Reading: A Synthesis of Research.” National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. 20 May 2002. <http://216.26.160.105/conf/nichd/synthesis.asp>
O’Brien, Peggy, ed. Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching Hamlet and Henry IV Part 1. New York: Washington Square Press, 1994.
Powell, Joseph, and Mark Halperin. Accent on Meter: A Handbook for Readers of Poetry. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2004.
Pritner, Cal, and Louis Colaianni. How to Speak Shakespeare. Santa Monica, CA: Santa Monica Press, 2001.
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square Press, 1994.
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Ed. Rex Gibson. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Wright, George T. “The Play of Phrase and Line.” Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945-2000. Ed. Russ McDonald. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.