Слике страница
PDF
ePub

inherent, and manners, which he may acquire through the hard work of repeated exercises and experiences. When he finally emerges, he is pronounced a gentleman because he speaks well, converses well, reads well appears cultivated, and is an artist.

Q. What is needful to success in this art?

A. Sincerity of purpose and devotion. Application accomplishes wonders, regardless of natural gifts.

Q. What measure of success may be reasonably expected?

A. Success comes in proportion to the completeness of your acceptance of discipline and to your special aptitudes. Here, as elsewhere in life, concentrated and prolonged effort is akin to genius.

Q. Should the art of self-expression be individual?

A. Yes, by all means.

Q. What means should you employ for its development?

A. Any means which will result in the removal of the obstructions and inelegances that stand between your personality and its free expression.

Q. Should you oblige yourself to conform to

set rules?

A. Yes, where a rule is required to present the

truth. There can be only one truth, but there are many means and degrees in expressing that truth. Q. Give an example.

A. Astonishment. A wanderer long thought dead returns to his home. At sight of him his inother, in one extreme, remains stationary, with lips a little parted and a slight distention of the eyes. In the other extreme she would open her eyes and mouth as wide as possible, rush forward, scream, and possibly have hysterics. Between these two extremes is every conceivable degree.

Q. To whom is the world indebted for a method of theory and practice in self-expression?

A. Many minds have contributed to the better understanding of truth and its expression through voice and action.

Q. What question should I, as a student, first ask myself?

A. What topics I am to study, and how I am to obtain a thorough understanding of their significance.

Q. What process should I follow in taking up a new study?

A. You should first select your subject, which tells you what to do; you should analyze it, which tells you how to do it; and you should apply this knowledge, which is the doing of it.

Q. What here is the general subject?
A. Expression.

Q. Into what branches do you divide this for its better understanding and analysis?

A. Into eleven: Elocution, Voice Culture, Physical Culture, Deportment, Action, Dramatic Action, Gesture, Facial Expression, Pantomime, Oratory, and Conversation.

Q. What relation do these topics bear to the general subject?

A. They are all related, correlated, dependent, and interdependent.

Q. What is Elocution?

A. Elocution is the art of speaking and reading in the most finished manner, simply, without exaggeration. It is the expression of yourself or the thoughts of others through means of the vocal organs. It is to be regretted that there is no word to take the place of the word Elocution, since it has been so sadly abused.

Q. What does Voice Culture do for me?

A. Voice Culture enables you to determine the pitch or tone which best suits yourself or your subject, to vary from that pitch at need, to make your voice louder or softer, to direct and extend it to any given person or place, and to withdraw it in the same manner. It involves the elements

of articulation, enunciation, pronunciation, inflection, emphasis, power, phrasing, color, and the appropriate changes in the quality of your voice to express the variation of emotion or mood.

Q. What is Physical Culture?

[ocr errors]

A. Physical Culture is the education of the features, the legs and arms, in fact, the entire body, for all purposes of conduct and expression, as for gesture and for pantomime, which is the necessary accompaniment of thought and speech. Q. What is Deportment?

A. Deportment is the art of doing everything that you do in the most finished manner. The expression of yourself through your features and through both the movements and the repose of your body.

Q. What is the relation between Action and Rest?

A. Both voice and conduct are understood to be united in action. An action implies also the intelligent cessation of motion or rest. There is power in quiescence as in movement, in silence as in speech.

Q. What is Dramatic Action?

A. Dramatic Action is the rendering of the deeds and speech of every-day life, in a manner suitable to the platform or stage; an outward

expression of feeling calculated to impress the audience with a sense of truth, sometimes even at the sacrifice of literal fact.

Q. What is Gesture?

A. Gesture is the movement of the limbs, including the hands, arms, feet, and legs, and of the body as a whole for the purpose of enforcing an opinion or conveying an emotion. As there are appropriate changes of the voice to suit the mood, so are there appropriate gestures which correspond to the thought, thereby lending truthfulness to expression.

Q. What is Facial Expression?

A. Facial Expression is motion or change of the features. It involves the use of eyes, nose, mouth, and hair, for the better delineation of emotion and character. Facial Expression is one of the fundamentals of good conduct. It is the religious duty of every person to maintain a cheerful and agreeable facial expression, at least outside of the privacy of his own rooms.

Q. What is Pantomime?

A. Pantomime is the voiceless conveyance of ideas. A frequent accompaniment of speech, it is also an interpretation or an interruption of it. It involves gesture and facial expression, never speech.

« ПретходнаНастави »