The Literary Artist employs written language, and the Performance Artist must identify vocal and physical behavior which "matches" (Wallace Bacon's term) the author's language.

This handout outlines a few approaches to the performance of figurative imagery. The author selects imagery from our human experience which s/he believes will elicit a response in a reader. The performer must select vocal and physical actions which match their response as a reader, in hopes of allowing the audience to share in a similar response.

A figurative image is created through metaphor or simile.

Images are received by the basic senses: sound, sight, smell, taste, touch.

The purpose of the image is to stir the passions and "elevated thought."

For the performer imagery is a source of performance power. Those literal (or sensory) images and figurative images provide the origin of vocal and phsyical behavior which reinforce the author's meaning through oral performance. Each image in a work of literature is a potential performance behavior. The performer selects vocal and physical behavior which "matches" the image provided by the author. The goal is to reduplicate meaning by providing the listener with another way to hear or see the image. The listener can interpret the word "cold," but if the performer raises his/her shoulders as if against the cold, we provide the listener two ways to experience the idea.

IV. Use of language to intensify the image. This craft functions through figures of speech, choice of words, and breadth of vocabulary.

The performer employs the structure of intonation in American English to reinforce the potential meaning of the figures and words chosen by the author. The major tool is stress (or emphasis) on the words most vital to the comparison. Then voice qualities, quantities and rates can be employed to reduplicate the qualities of the each half of the written comparison in oral terms.

"King David is a lion" is highlighted by stress on "David" and "lion," with the additional possibility of deeper pitch or rough vocal quality to suggest the strength of the animal in the saying of the word "lion."

A. Figures of Speech include:

1. The metaphor and simile both

(1) make comparisons

(2) between unlike objects, or of different classes.

Metaphor makes a direct comparison; says one thing is another.

Simile makes an indirect or explicit comparison which says one thing is "than," "as," "like," or "similar to" another thing.

The performer employs different pitch levels to vocally highlight the comparisons being made, and employs other vocal qualities to reinforce the differing objects or classes of objects.

2. Personification gives human or lifelike qualities to inanimate objects.

The performer can choose among the behaviors common to human or animal qualities to reinforce the authors comparison. In "A Tree Telling of Orpheus," by Denise Levertov, for example, a performer might sway slightly to suggest a tree, or speak slowly to suggest a very old tree's different sense of the passage of time.

3. Apostrophe is an extension of personification in that the object is spoken to as though it were human.

The performer can speak with vocal and physical behavior appropriate to speaking to a human, when addressing the moon, the stars, etc. Physically one might make "eye contact" offstage with the object being spoken to, as in Robert Frost's "O Star! The fairest one in sight..."

4. Hyperbole is an exaggeration not intended to deceive, as in "She'll be tickled to death."

Litotes is the opposite of hyperbole, or a purposeful understatement, such as "if you drink from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost sure to disagree with you."

The performer can exaggerate physical behavior for hyperbole to the audience's recognition point, and overdo the behavior associated with innocence for litotes. The understanding of the "breakpoints" of humor is vital here. Clues to the audience of the performers intention to play, and not deceive, are the suggestion of a grin at the corner of the mouth and eyes and the extent of vocal and physical exaggeration.

5. Metonomy, meaning "change or name," is the substitution of one object for another.

There are five types:

a. container for the thing contained, as "the kettle boils."

b. sign for thing signified, as "He won the crown," the crown a sign for the position of king.

c. cause for effect, as "You should read Milton," Milton being the cause of the literature you should read.

d. effect for cause, as "The wrinkled face deserves our respect," the wrinkles being the effect of age, which deserves our respect.

e. synecdoche, the part for the whole or the whole for a part, as "We gave Lily ...every stitch she had on," or "The Univ. of Mich. defeated Ohio State," respectively. They really gave Lily many of the items of clothing she wore, and The University of Michigan FOOTBALL TEAM won the victory, not the University.

In each case, the performer seeks a vocal or physical response which reinforces the meaning. In rate and quality, for example, we might imitate the "boiling" of the kettle. We might stress the impressiveness of the "crown" with a change in posture to regal bearing. And each form of metonymy might be separated vocally from its context to draw the audience's attention to the fact that more meaning is present that may immediately meet the ear.

B. Choice of Words: the selection of a character's vocabulary in such a way as to reveal mood, thoughts, and attitudes.

The performer must look to the words chosen by a character, and seek to reinforce the character's mood, thoughts and attitudes by vocal and physical responses to those words. Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, for example, speaks constantly in four-letter words. My interpretation is that he does it to sound grown up, and I would overemphasize them slightly in performance to suggest that Holden is "working too hard" to impress his hearers.

C. Vocabulary: the use of words with ambiguities or multiple meanings (which the interpreter must understand).

When words have important connections to other words or ideas, the performer must employ pauses and other behaviors to signify to the audience that these words demand extra attention. Often, as we will discuss in the vocal performance lecture, words with connections beyond the individual sentence are stressed beyond the level of other words in the sentence.

V. Structure, or "dignified and elevated composition."

The arrangement of unremarkable words and images into an artistic and exciting whole, through:

A. Rhythm, a quality of word groups which results in an identifiable momentum.

Here the performer can identify patterns of stress, unstress, and rate which "match" the author's creation.

B. Meter, a regularly reoccuring beat caused by stress on syllables.

The performer must approach meter (and the next item, rhyme) carefully. Remember Aristotles dictum that the best art (technique) is that which does not call attention to itself. We should neither (1) "punch" the rhythmic beat or (2) fail to note it altogether. Attempt to catch a balance between the dah-DAH, dah-DAH, dah-DAH of the meter and the conversational flow of the ideas. Performance with becomes too rhythmic becomes boring, and people stop hearing it. At the same time, the metrical structure provides unity and ties the work together; therefore it deserves to be heard as well.

C. Rhyme, repetition of vowel sounds at the end of a line. Avoid the problems mentioned above.

D. Alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia.

(1) Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of words in a series.

"Lucky Larry Lost his Lucky Letter"

(2) Assonance is the repetition of the same vowel sound in syllables with different consonants.

"The sOUnd resOUnded through the hOUse..."

For the performer, the same approach as for meter and rhyme. Think of the way the base runner in baseball tags second on the way to third base. He has to touch it cleanly, or he's out; but he doesn't waste time jumping up and down on it. In the same way, our performance of vocally repetitive language must demonstrate the qualities of the structure without making it the most important part of the performance.

(3) Onomatopoeia is the use of a word which echoes the meaning of the word, as in "murmur," "cluck," or "groan." In each case the performer can find stress, pitch, emphasis on consonants or vowels, etc., to help the spoken word make the sound imitated by the written word.

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The outline of written stylistic devices based on Armstrong, Chloe, and Paul D. Brandes, The Oral Interpretation of Literature, New York, 1963, pp. 100-116. Performance suggestions by T. Lentz.