More on Recitation
A had a visit from Jason Boyd, whose blog on Recitation may be of interest to some of my readers. Jason remarked about the passage from Shakespeare I was asked to memorize in high school. It was in 8th grade, which for us was the first of four years in high school, and my teacher was Miss Elaine Evans (who was one of those memorable teachers who teach their students to drink deep!)
Miss Evans was the head of the English department, and was also a member of a local acting troupe. Miss Evans told us all about Shakespeare and his time, and she taught us that to appreciate his plays they must be acted out. And that we did! We visited the Little Theatre over a period of several days in order to run through A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I wish we had done the same in later years! Watching Chuck and “Sir” act out Julius Caesar (Man Without a Face 1993) reminded me of how little I had enjoyed that particular play when we read it in school….)
In addition to acting out the play we were asked to memorize and then recite a speech from the play. I believe we had been given two or three options to choose from. This is the piece I selected:
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.Oberon to Puck
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II Scene I
Thinking back on it, I think we were only expected to remember the first six lines. I have included the rest for my own pleasure and, I hope, for yours. I have an indelible memory of Miss Evans reading this piece for us in class, and miming the action of squeezing the juice from the flower into Titania’s eyes. I can still hear her repeating the last two lines for us, when the question of rhyming was raised. She taught us that in Shakespeare’s time the word “fantasies” would have been pronounced to rhyme with “eyes.” I don’t know if that is true or whether that was just a theory of hers, but it was memorable.
Thanks to Miss Evans for all the valuable lessons she shared, and to Jason for stopping by! I am flattered by your kind words, and very much look forward to reading some of your other posts. I wandered over to the Favorite Poem Project, as well, and am very excited with this new discovery! I’m glad you had the link on your blog 
This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
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To recite is to understand « Recitation: set moving anew said,
March 22, 2008 @ 19:38
[…] 2, after seeing my post about her post on recitation, kindly expanded on her reflections about her experiences with recitation as a student. Her teacher Miss Evans believed that only by acting Shakespeare could one truly understand him. I […]