I enjoy reading aloud the literature that I select for my classes. While I just get pleasure from talking (no surprise there), I experience true joy as I read aloud intricate passages from masters of the writing craft. This is especially true of older works in which the authors intentionally sharpened and honed the lyrical quality of their poems and stories. The pleasure I feel while breathing life into these words that were captured on paper and that traveled through time to be once more spoken into the open air is what I imagine doctors must feel when they bring back a patient from the dead.
Authors entrust their words to lifeless pages, hoping that someone will pull them into their bodies and then blow them out into the air to travel the world again. Being an instrument for that task is to be part of the rejuvenation of the thoughts and feelings held by people hundreds of years ago. The word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning breath. Reading aloud puts spirit back into the words, which then mingles in the air with my own spirit and is breathed back into me.
While reading aloud, I join the cadre of skalds, bards, and griots who used the spoken word to inform and entertain. Just as they passed these words in front of campfires to eager listeners, so too do I use these words to hopefully spark and kindle some dream or idea in the hearts of my students. It is no wonder that people believe that words and books contained magic and spells, for I am spellbound by the sounds, feelings, and images that these words produce as they are said aloud.
That, and I get to use my Beowulf voice.
Authors entrust their words to lifeless pages, hoping that someone will pull them into their bodies and then blow them out into the air to travel the world again. Being an instrument for that task is to be part of the rejuvenation of the thoughts and feelings held by people hundreds of years ago. The word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning breath. Reading aloud puts spirit back into the words, which then mingles in the air with my own spirit and is breathed back into me.
While reading aloud, I join the cadre of skalds, bards, and griots who used the spoken word to inform and entertain. Just as they passed these words in front of campfires to eager listeners, so too do I use these words to hopefully spark and kindle some dream or idea in the hearts of my students. It is no wonder that people believe that words and books contained magic and spells, for I am spellbound by the sounds, feelings, and images that these words produce as they are said aloud.
That, and I get to use my Beowulf voice.
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