Force of voice under the form of Radical Stress, Force of voice under the form of Vanishing Stress, Force of voice under the form of Compound Stress, 120 REESE LIBRARY L GRAMMAR OF ELOCUTION. RECITATION FIRST. ARTICULATION. A PERFECTLY accurate and distinct ARTICULA-TION, must form the basis of a good delivery. Speaking and reading cannot be impressive if the utterance is indistinct. Students of Elocution should therefore always attend to articulation, as the primary object; and in the first instance, it should be prosecuted alone, as a distinct branch of the art, and prosecuted until perfection in it is attained. Indeed the secret of success in learning the art of delivery, consists in attending to one thing at once. Failures will always be frequent, as they ever have been, whilst it is attempted in the gross; by the usual method of going at once to reading and declamation, and endeavouring to enforce articulation, emphasis, inflection, and many other things, altogether. The object of this first recitation is to lay down the elements of a distinct ARTICULATION: to present this branch of the art to the view of the learner and teacher by itself; and, in such a simple form, that the one may have a scheme of teaching, and the other a definite mode of acquiring, this preparatory and indispensable requisite of all good reading and speaking. A slight attention to public speaking, or to reading, will show that a good articulation is very uncommon. The attentive listener has to complain, that, letters, words, and, sometimes, considerable portions of sentences, are pronounced with so little force and precision, that the mind is constantly confused in its attempts to apprehend the meaning. Conversation partakes of the defect in question. But faults of articulation which do not strike the ear in conversation, become, not only apparent in public speaking, and reading aloud, but, sometimes, confound the sense to such a degree, that it is difficult to collect the general meaning, much more the precise ideas, contained in what is read or spoken. If a person would have a more impressive conviction of the truth of these remarks than mere assertion can produce, let him direct his attention to the single circumstance of the articulation, in a series of recitations at any school examination-in the declamations of students at a college commencement-in public readings and recitations, even by professed readers and reciters—in ordinary discourses delivered from the pulpit, at the bar, in halls of assembly, at public meetings, or on the floor of Congress. Indeed, a faulty articulation is so extensively and generally prevalent, that I have scarcely ever attended an exhibition of public speaking, by young persons, without hearing the language literally murdered. The defects carried from schools and colleges are but very partially remedied in the world. Now, a speaker may be sure that an audience will never give him their attention long, if his articulation is such as to disappoint the ear and confuse the mind. Thus the very purpose for which he rises from his seat is frustrated. |