The Encyclopedia of the Novel by Logan Peter Melville; George Olakunle; Hegeman Susan

Author:Logan, Peter Melville; George, Olakunle; Hegeman, Susan [Kristal, Efraín]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405161848
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2011-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Reading Novels Aloud

While the elocutionists explicitly focused on reading in the church or in public speeches, and the school anthologies offered examples of famous speeches from history and from drama, as well as short pieces in prose and verse, the ideas of the elocutionists did influence the reading of novels. Jane Austen, for example, was well aware of the elocution movement; its influence on reading the church service is discussed in Mansfield Park (1814, vol. 3, chap. 3). Austen's letters and novels provide many examples of reading aloud in the family circle, with comments on the quality of the reading. In her novels, Austen sometimes marked her text for the oral reader, who, unlike a reader of the church service, would probably not have prepared the reading in advance: her use of italics and paragraph breaks suggest points where the reader might emphasize or pause (Michaelson).

As a mixed genre, novels demanded a range of reading styles. The elocutionists had urged readers to “personate” the author of a speech they were reading; this facilitated the reader's primary job, to convey the author's meaning to the audience. But readers of novels should personate the author only in narrative sections; in the dialogues, they should portray the various characters. Reading aloud becomes a kind of acting. Gilbert Austin wrote that readers of novels should hurry through “mere narrative.” “Interesting scenes” demand more careful, impressive reading, while dialogue should be read as if it were drama (1806, Chironomia, 206). John Wilson noted that even a given description must be read differently, depending on which character is speaking (1798, Principles of Elocution).

These elaborations reimagine the novel as theater. Authors planning for an oral performance, then, might minimize narrative in favor of dialogue, leading to livelier reading. In preparing his own texts for his popular public readings, Charles Dickens tended to abbreviate narrative while making characters' speech more inflected by dialect. Dickens noted emphases, as well as tones and gestures, in his prompt books. He maintained the line between reading and acting, remaining behind his reading desk, but reviewers called him “one of the best of living actors” (Collins, lvi; see also Andrews).

Reading novels aloud alters the audience's experience of the text. The reader is an intermediary between text and audience, not only interpreting the text through his or her voice, but also abridging the text in some places and stopping to comment in others. In her diary of 1798, Frances Burney says of her husband reading Gil Blas to their son, the “excellent Father judiciously omits or changes all such passages as might tarnish the lovely purity of his innocence” (1976, Journals and Letters, 6:801). The risk that the solitary reader might enter too deeply into the illusion is obviated. The text is shared, interpreted, and contextualized in the family. In addition, reading aloud within the family reinforces social bonds and hierarchies: the reader might be a father surrounded by his family, a husband reading to his wife in bed, reinforcing their intimacy, or a paid companion reading to amuse her patron (as Jo does in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, 1868).

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