Declamatory Style

This intonational style is also called by some as "artistic, acquired or stage". As we see from these labels, the
scholars suggest that this is a highly emotional and expressive intonational style, that is why it needs special
training. Attitudinal, volitional and intellectual functions of intonation are of primary importance here and serve to
appeal to the mind, will and feelings of the listener.
The prosodic organization of such texts will vary greatly, depending on the type of the theatrical performance —
whether it is a tragedy, drama or comedy — and, of course, on the social factors — the social and cultural
background of the play characters, their relationship, extralinguistic context, and so on.
Acting is a two-way conversation, players respond very directly and promptly to the "feedback" they get from the
audience; the "feedback" in their case being almost certainly communal, collective, non-verbal language.
Methods of achieving, stimulating and maintaining this "conversation" with their audience must inevitably be the
mainspring of the actors' "training".
The prosodic organization of declamatory reading depends on the type of the literary text — descriptive,
narrative, dialogue; on the character of the described events, schemes and objects (humorous, tragic, romantic,
dreamy, imaginative and so on) and of course on the skills of the reader. But it is always clearly marked and
distinguished by its expressiveness, personal involvement on the part of the author, by the emphasis, by the
entire range of prosodic and paralinguistic effects and it is all felt through the skilful reading.

Terminal tones: common use of categoric low and high falls in final and even initial intonation groups and on
semantic centres; occasional use of rising and level tones to break the monotony and in initial groups to connect
segments of the phrase, to lead the listener on the later developments.

Rate: deliberately slow, necessitated by the purpose of the reading: trie complete understanding of the author's
message by the listener; changes in the speed of utterances are determined by the syntactic structures,
importance of information and the degree of emphasis.

Pauses: long, especially between the passages. Disjunctive pauses tend to be longer than connecting ones.
Internal boundary placement is always syntactically or semantically predictable. A declamatory reading is
distinctly marked by a great number of prolonged emphatic pauses — the device used by.

Rhythm:properly organized, the isochronic recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables

Ex. 1. Read and listen to the extract from «Julius Caesar» by William Shakespeare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bi1PvXCbr8 (0:00-2:46)

Analyse the intonation of the delivery. How is each element of a public speech manifested in this extract?

1.words
2.voice tone
3.body language
4.headline
5.conversation
6.communication language
7.genuine passion

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(from Julius Caesar, spoken by Marc Antony)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men–

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

Ex. 2 Watch another actor doing the same monologue. Compare both performances. Which one is in your
opinion more powerful? Give reasons.

Ex. 3 How did Mark Antony manage to sow a seed of doubt in the heart of the crowd? Think about what he said
and how he said that.

Ex. 4. Read the short analysis of the speech. How according the writer does Mark Antony make the audience
change their mind about Caesar’s death?

https://interestingliterature.com/2020/10/mark-antony-friends-romans-countrymen-speech-
summary-analysis/

Ex. 5. Read and listen to Sonnet 116 by W. Shakespeare. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNGdrPPeIDM

What makes it difficult to learn?

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

Ex. 6. Listen to the same Sonnet read in Original Pronunciation, the way might have sounded in Shakespeare’s
time. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b06ycr4v (4:50-5:39) Write out the words which sounded differently in
the 1600s.

ex. 7. Listen https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b06ycr4v (5:40-10:00) and answer the questions:

1. What does OP stand for? Is it London, Welsh, Irish, Scottish or Warwickshire accent?
2. What evidence did David Crystal use to prove that that is how the English language sounded in the 1600s?
Which examples does he give?
3. How was the TH cluster pronounced in the Shakespeare’s time? Which examples do they give?

Ex. 8. Practise reading Sonnet 116 in either RP or OP.