"34. Remember that reading intelligently also includes reading aloud,
vocalising and performing a text as
a spoken sequence of pitch and in-
tonation, of modulated phrase contour and
rhythm and tone or tones of voice.
Different kinds and period-styles of composition aim at different modes of
voicing, using sound and pace and emph
asis for different kinds of effect.
Metre and rhyme give shape to verse in ways best explored by reading aloud,
just as wit and the nuances of comedy or
satire come alive in skilled control of
vocal inflection. Precise marking of irony or parody often depends on
recognising the tones which signal these effects. Actors and singers are not
the only ones who should practise to become versatile in these text-
performance skills, because spoken utterance is an acutely testing aspect of
formal interpretation, especially in re
gard to the patterns of writing in its
rhythms and cadences, and in its styles of social delivery. Experienced
readers can also develop skills to hear the sound-aspects of a text silently in
their own minds, just as musicians can read over a score and 'hear' its
sonorities. Try to learn some poems or
passages by heart; try out your powers
of recognition and delivery by reading aloud to yourself or to each other, and
then estimating how fully you have been able to catch the voice-qualities of
the text. A person who can read aloud
Venus and Adonis
or
The Rape of the
Lock
or
Little Gidding
, and can do so with apt verve and insight, is already well
advanced in literary understanding. "
https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/reading.pdf