Spoke Bespoke

More troubles with reciting dialogue.

Bardelys remained staunchly impressed, nay, in awe, of Karen Savage and her reading of the Baroness Orczy’s The Elusive Pimpernel. And yet he found a problem – not indeed with the performance, but with the writing from 100 years before.

In short, dialogue written for the page presents grave difficulties to the oral reciter.

In person, the oral talesman has several tools with which to substitute for the clever punctuation marks developed over the centuries to represent and mark off dialogue. The oral talesman when he stands before you, can turn to the right when he gives one character’s lines, and to the left when he gives another; he can vary his facial expression; he can alter his poster and bearing; he can play tricks with his voice.

When the oral talesman recites over the radio, or on record, he is left with only his voice. And so it is with voice alone that the redoubtable Ms Savage must represent the distinctions between speakers. In the following passage, reprinted from the fourth chapter of the book, several speakers are discussing the mysterious figure of the Scarlet Pimpernel at the Richmond Gala fair.

Bardelys did have a couple of moments listening to the passage where he wasn’t entirely sure who spoke what. To remove all the punctuation distinctions, he set it all down as it must be spoken:

Say what? commented Johnny Cullen, the apprentice. Who this mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel is. Perhaps he isn't, said old Clutterbuck, who was clerk of the vestry at the church of St. John's the Evangelist. Yes! he added sententiously, for he was fond of his own sayings and usually liked to repeat them before he had quite done with them, that's it, you may be sure. Perhaps he isn't. What do you mean, Master Clutterbuck? asked Ursula Quekett, for she knew the old man liked to explain his wise saws, and as she wanted to marry his son, she indulged him whenever she could. What do you mean? He isn't what? He isn't. That's all, explained Clutterbuck with vague solemnity. Then seeing that he had gained the attention of the little party round him, he condescended to come to more logical phraseology. I mean, that perhaps we must not ask, who IS this mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel? but who WAS that poor and unfortunate gentleman? Then you think, suggested Mistress Polly, who felt unaccountably low-spirited at this oratorical pronouncement. I have it for a fact, said Mr. Clutterbuck solemnly, that he whom they call the Scarlet Pimpernel no longer exists now: that he was collared by the Frenchies, as far back as last fall, and in the language of the poets, has never been heard of no more.

You can see the difficulty. Had the Baroness Orczy written with radio (or podcast or audiobook) in mind, she would have, and should have, interjected a lot more ‘attributions’ to the lines.

Each and every line of dialogue must be clearly marked off, in the text itself, in words, to let the audience know who said it.

The only exception comes when a scene is presented in which there are only two speakers, and the lines are quite short. When each speaker gives no more than one line, in rapid alternation, the result is a lyric, a sort of poetry or song of chant and response, whose rhythm (so long as it remains unbroken) leaves no doubt as to who says what.

It also can help in an interrogation scene: where only one party asks, and only one answers, then the audience can rely upon the form of the sentence to identify the speaker.

Also, as a sort of sub-set of the interrogation scene, Bardelys had to add the scene in which one character knows a good deal more than the other.

Finally, Bardelys was minded of dialogue that was written ‘in dialect’ – a practice much used in 1908 and before, but currently out of favor. But in oral talesmanship, where the lines are to be performed, such dialectical differences can mark off the different speakers. And it is not to be thought of, Bardelys imagined, that an oral talesman, a mountebank performer, should deliver lines of servant and master, townsman and country-man, foreigner and native-born, in one and the same manner for all.

(Composed on keyboard Thursday 2 October 2008)

Autopsy of an Old Tale

A look at one of Boccaccio’s tales from his Decamerone

Early Printed Tales

It occurs to me that some of the earliest novels are collections of tales presented as oral tales, and that these might well serve as a first step in a search for how an oral tale is to be put together. The Decamerone was the first of these, I think, and Messer Boccaccio the first talesman to bind up old tales in a new framework, retell them, and have the result printed out.

The best way to study these is to recite them yourself, record your recital, and then listen to the playback. Go farther, and learn the tale in its essence, and perform it in your own words. As these are tales Messer Boccaccio told in prose, a translation may convey most of his composition and even a good part of his divine style. But these are old tales, and Messer Boccaccio himself did but retell them (or tell of his characters as they retold them to one another in the countryside, to divert their hearts from the heavy gloom into which the plague’s outbreak had cast them). So a translation becomes here but a further retelling.

It is the general structure that I focus on here. Not the structure of the tale, but of the act of reciting the tale orally.

The edition I copy from is in the collection of http://www.gutenberg.net or Project Gutenberg

The Decameron
of
Giovanni Boccaccio
Faithfully Translated
By J.M. Rigg

(Project Gutenberg etext thdcm10.txt)

And out of the 100 tales, this is the first of them, day one, tale one. It has the most complete form that I’ve found.

Chapter Subtitle

We begin with the Chapter Subtitle. This is of course a matter of printing, and of the collection, and would not be part of the individual tale if it were recited. I include it only to show how complete such subtitles were in the beginning of the age of print. The entire tale is here summarized, and the ending is not withheld. What will be offered for our amusement, then, is not the surprise of the end, but rather how the end is reached.

Ser Ciappelletto cheats a holy friar by a false confession, and dies; and, having lived as a very bad man, is, on his death, reputed a saint, and called San Ciappelletto.

Talesman’s Introduction

The ‘recital’ or ‘performance’ of the tale begins with the talesman speaking directly to his audience. This shows how the oral talesman cannot possible hide from his audience the way modern writers try to do when they follow the commandment of ‘show don’t tell.’ The talesman here sets forth an introduction to the tale. He doesn’t give us a synopsis of his plot, as in the Chapter Subtitle, but rather he frames the tale in terms of his general themes.

A seemly thing it is, dearest ladies, that whatever we do, it be begun in the holy and awful name of Him who was the maker of all. Wherefore, as it falls to me to lead the way in this your enterprise of story telling, I intend to begin with one of His wondrous works, that, by hearing thereof, our hopes in Him, in whom is no change, may be established, and His name be by us forever lauded. ’Tis manifest that, as things temporal are all doomed to pass and perish, so within and without they abound with trouble and anguish and travail, and are subject to infinite perils; nor, save for the especial grace of God, should we, whose being is bound up with and forms part of theirs, have either the strength to endure or the wisdom to combat their adverse influences. By which grace we are visited and penetrated (so we must believe) not by reason of any merit of our own, but solely out of the fulness of God's own goodness, and in answer to the prayers of those who, being mortal like ourselves, did faithfully observe His ordinances during their lives, and are now become blessed for ever with Him in heaven. To whom, as to advocates taught by experience all that belongs to our frailty, we, not daring, perchance, to present our petitions in the presence of so great a judge, make known our requests for such things as we deem expedient for us. And of His mercy richly abounding to usward we have further proof herein, that, no keenness of mortal vision being able in any degree to penetrate the secret counsels of the Divine mind, it sometimes, perchance, happens, that, in error of judgment, we make one our advocate before His Majesty, who is banished from His presence in eternal exile, and yet He to whom nothing is hidden, having regard rather to the sincerity of our prayers than to our ignorance or the banishment of the intercessor, hears us no less than if the intercessor were in truth one of the blest who enjoy the light of His countenance. Which the story that I am about to relate may serve to make apparent; apparent, I mean, according to the standard or the judgment of man, not of God.

Backstory

From this introduction the talesman gives the backstory of his tale. This is standard structural talesmanship. In an oral performance the Introduction allows all the audience to settle, stop coughing, elbowing one another, and whispering to one another, so that they begin to pay attention. The talesman has now set their minds to considering the theme, and he can launch the tale, confident that his audience will be listening with the theme in mind.

This tale is a story of redemption (in a way) and so the turns will depend upon the hero. The talesman’s backstory concerns this hero, thus signaling to the audience that it is a tale of memorial (literally, in this case).

The story goes, then, that Musciatto Franzesi, a great and wealthy merchant, being made a knight in France, and being to attend Charles Sansterre, brother of the King of France, when he came into Tuscany at the instance and with the support of Pope Boniface, found his affairs, as often happens to merchants, to be much involved in divers quarters, and neither easily nor suddenly to be adjusted; wherefore he determined to place them in the hands of commissioners, and found no difficulty except as to certain credits given to some Burgundians, for the recovery of which he doubted whether he could come by a competent agent; for well he knew that the Burgundians were violent men and ill-conditioned and faithless; nor could he call to mind any man so bad that he could with confidence oppose his guile to theirs. After long pondering the matter, he recollected one Ser Ciapperello da Prato, who much frequented his house in Paris. Who being short of stature and very affected, the French who knew not the meaning of Cepparello, but supposed that it meant the same as Cappello, i. e. garland, in their vernacular, called him not Cappello, but Ciappelletto by reason of his diminutive size; and as Ciappelletto he was known everywhere, whereas few people knew him as Ciapperello.

Tale Setup

The talesman sets up the tale by elaborating on those features of his hero that speak directly to how he will change. The talesman is quite open about what he is doing; the word ‘now’ tells us that a new section of the tale is beginning, and the sentence that completes it sets forth the topic of the paragraph.

Now Ciappelletto's manner of life was thus. He was by profession a notary, and his pride was to make false documents; he would have made them as often as he was asked, and more readily without fee than another at a great price; few indeed he made that were not false, and, great was his shame when they were discovered. False witness he bore, solicited or unsolicited, with boundless delight; and, as oaths were in those days had in very great respect in France, he, scrupling not to forswear himself, corruptly carried the day in every case in which he was summoned faithfully to attest the truth. He took inordinate delight, and bestirred himself with great zeal, in fomenting ill-feeling, enmities, dissensions between friends, kinsfolk and all other folk; and the more calamitous were the consequences the better he was pleased. Set him on murder, or any other foul crime, and he never hesitated, but went about it with alacrity; he had been known on more than one occasion to inflict wounds or death by preference with his own hands. He was a profuse blasphemer of God and His saints, and that on the most trifling occasions, being of all men the most irascible. He was never seen at Church, held all the sacraments vile things, and derided them in language of horrible ribaldry. On the other hand he resorted readily to the tavern and other places of evil repute, and frequented them. He was as fond of women as a dog is of the stick: in the use against nature he had not his match among the most abandoned. He would have pilfered and stolen as a matter of conscience, as a holy man would make an oblation. Most gluttonous he was and inordinately fond of his cups, whereby he sometimes brought upon himself both shame and suffering. He was also a practised gamester and thrower of false dice. But why enlarge so much upon him? Enough that he was, perhaps, the worst man that ever was born.

Tale Ends

The talesman goes on to follow the stages of his tale to its climax. After the climax comes the ending, signaled by the word ‘so.’ I include this part mostly to note how the oral talesman treats dialogue in his tale. One line only he gives in the voice of the friar; the rest of the friar’s discourse the talesman gives in summary, in indirect discourse.

So it was laid in the church, and then the holy friar who had heard the confession got up in the pulpit and began to preach marvellous things of Ser Ciapelletto's life, his fasts, his virginity, his simplicity and guilelessness and holiness; narrating among the other matters that of which Ser Ciappelletto had made tearful confession as his greatest sin, and how he had hardly been able to make him conceive that God would pardon him; from which he took occasion to reprove his hearers; saying:—“And you, accursed of God, on the least pretext, blaspheme God and His Mother, and all the celestial court.” And much beside he told of his loyalty and purity; and, in short, so wrought upon the people by his words, to which they gave entire credence, that they all conceived a great veneration for Ser Ciappelletto, and at the close of the office came pressing forward with the utmost vehemence to kiss the feet and the hands of the corpse, from which they tore off the cerements, each thinking himself blessed to have but a scrap thereof in his possession; and so it was arranged that it should be kept there all day long, so as to be visible and accessible to all. At nightfall it was honourably interred in a marble tomb in one of the chapels, where on the morrow, one by one, folk came and lit tapers and prayed and paid their vows, setting there the waxen images which they had dedicated. And the fame of Ciappelletto's holiness and the devotion to him grew in such measure that scarce any there was that in any adversity would vow aught to any saint but he, and they called him and still call him San Ciappelletto affirming that many miracles have been and daily are wrought by God through him for such as devoutly crave his intercession.

Talesman’s Summing-Up

The tale is now ended. This is the point at which a printed version — the tale written to be read — would conclude; nothing else is needed or desired. In an oral, live performance of the tale, such an ending would be too abrupt; the tale stops, the audience blink, and suddenly behold the talesman standing before them with nothing more to say, suddenly thrown from his role as talesman and entertainer to a common man, in his own flesh and skin and name, there in front of them.

The oral talesman, then, feels the need to withdraw gracefully from the tale, even though it is ended. His summing-up, or envoy, echoes his introduction; he speaks yet about the tale, but puts himself more forward, bringing the audience to see the man telling the tale. In a sense this section, like the talesman’s introduction, allows talesman and audience to straddle both worlds, the world of the tale and the world in which they lead their lives, from which they consider the story-world.

So lived, so died Ser Cepperello da Prato, and came to be reputed a saint, as you have heard. Nor would I deny that it is possible that he is of the number of the blessed in the presence of God, seeing that, though his life was evil and depraved, yet he might in his last moments have made so complete an act of contrition that perchance God had mercy on him and received him into His kingdom. But, as this is hidden from us, I speak according to that which appears, and I say that he ought rather to be in the hands of the devil in hell than in Paradise. Which, if so it be, is a manifest token of the superabundance of the goodness of God to usward, inasmuch as he regards not our error but the sincerity of our faith, and hearkens unto us when, mistaking one who is at enmity with Him for a friend, we have recourse to him, as to one holy indeed, as our intercessor for His grace. Wherefore, that we of this gay company may by His grace be preserved safe and sound throughout this time of adversity, commend we ourselves in our need to Him, whose name we began by invoking, with lauds and reverent devotion and good confidence that we shall be heard.

In a recording of such a tale, using the radio model, this summing-up or envoy is often replaced by swelling music, and perhaps another voice stating that the end has been reached. This is also the way the audiobook model treats the end. With the audiobook today, of course, the performer must conform to a text that has been composed in order to be read off a page; he himself is but a paid announcer, forbidden to alter the composition himself.

In the printed version, the end is signaled by visual forms, and physical ones: the book reaches its end, or a new page begins another story, marked as such. The cover of the book serves as a sort of doorway into and out of the story world.

(Composed on keyboard Tuesday, May 13, 2008)

Old Tools for New Days

Devices of olden times serve well for oral tales

Lost Arts

If a talesman wants to learn how to compose tales to recite and be heard, in what we could call today the audiobook model, where can he look? For centuries the best talesmen have composed with text, print, and reading in mind. They meant their novels and short stories to be read. For much of a century now, even poets have forsaken the musical root of their art, and have composed for the printed page, poems to be read and not chanted.

So we must look earlier.

Poetry

Poetry was the last of the recited tales to yield to print. It may not have happened until the 1920s. So poetry gives us the latest, most recent tales composed in the West for reciting and hearing.

A narrative poem of course has other advantages over prose. Poetry, as I deem, was created as an aid to memory, and as such developed most of its particular features to help the reciters repeat the poem and pass it on without error.

So we can look at such things as

• Rhyme
• Meter
• Alliteration
• Assonance
• Notes and vowel sounds

to use in our oral tales. Today, these tools are disparaged in prose literature, probably (I’m guessing) because they call too much attention to the words qua words, and will lead to what is thought to be prose that is overly mannered, artificial, and ‘precious.’ Modern art in general likes a good helping of ‘noise’ or randomness in its surface. In the West this has been the case since 1918, when Europe died and western artists of the first rank, along with the leading critics, turned away from the old ideals that had helped bring about the slaughter of European civilization.

So, if the talesman of tomorrow will compose prose tales to be recited and heard, he should avail himself of these poetic devices, but use them sparingly.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric has an ancient tradition; it springs from the campfire and meeting-grounds at the dawn of what we might consider ‘politics.’ The art of Rhetoric is the art of winning a group of listeners over to your point of view. It wouldn’t seem to have much to offer a talesman. But it does.

In the first place, the finest rhetoricians and politicians know the value of allegory, and allegory is but a tale after all. Rhetoricians also know that appealing to the senses of their listeners, to their right brains, their deeper selves, their sight and smell and taste and feel, can bring them to a state of trance. Men are more easily persuaded when they are in trance. And abstractions are dry, after all, and will bore men, and cause their thoughts to stray to their next meal, a girl they fancy, the weather, or other things.

In the second place, the grains of rhetoric are not that far from poetry. In rhetoric also we find use for alliteration, assonance, meter, and the musical notes of the chosen words. This also induces trance, but beyond this, these devices are aspects of lovely-sounding speech, and the aim of the speech-maker here is to enchant his listeners at least by the sounds he makes, so as to hold their attention in the hope that the sense he makes will also be heard.

Where to Look

So we must look to narrative poems of the past, in their native tongues. This limits us to those poets who composed in tongues we know. We must also look to rhetoric of the past, again in its native tongue. The rhetoric of the present is rather weak in America, but I imagine there is some power that yet lingers in British Parliament.

What to do with these gems, as we find them, is to speak them out aloud, learn them well enough to recite them from memory, record our recitals, and listen to them played back.

(Composed on keyboard Monday, May 12, 2008)

Oral Epics

The classical oral tales are the best models

Amir Hamza

The Adventures of Amir Hamza is an epic of the Indian subcontinent. We have spoken of the need for talesmen who would compose after the audiobook model to teach themselves a new way of composing, one suited to oral telling. In order to do this, we must go through the whole process of composing, telling orally, listening to what we tell, and making notes on how the tale went over, as an oral tale.

An oral tale is like a song: it can be recorded now, but it also exists as a performance, and every time a talesman performs his oral tale, he composes it anew. Each performance thus is a new draft, a new telling, a new composing of the same basic tale.

We can also learn by studying old oral tales which have been written down. But the best way to study these tales is to listen to them recited, and to recite them ourselves.

The Adventures of Amir Hamza (which you can find at http://www.amazon.com in a new translation of a fairly complete 19th century edition) surely stands out in this regard, for it was written down by a master reciter, who came at the end of a long tradition of oral storytelling.

Amir Hamza and its Chapters

Each chapter of the tale is a separate performance. This is marked by an elaborate introduction of a few long sentences, which are probably meant to quiet the crowd and draw them into the story-world. Nothing about the story-world of the great Hamza is included in these lines; they are generic; they could as well introduce any other chapter in the tale, or any chapter in any other tale. They are also interesting in that they refer to the tale as having been written. I invent an example, not having the book to hand:

The lions of the wild words dance upon the page, and are hunted by the finest of all scribes, to tell in their way of how Hamza went to…

Each of these introductions employ some such fanciful metaphor; pens are like ships at sea leaving wakes of words, the scribes of old are like warriors entering into battle, and so forth.

The chapters also have a title (at least in the translation I have read) as well as a sub-title which explains in brief the action the chapter will encompass.

These sub-titles were once common in books, but I wonder if they had any place in the oral recitation of the tales of the amir? They might have done: as a sort of advertisement:

Hearken, and I will tell you of how Hamza saw and wooed the princess, daughter of the great emperor, and overcame all the guards set about the palace.

These words would draw some crowd from the market place, and establish for them what the tale would be. ‘Oh! I like that tale, I want to listen to it!’ someone might say, and set down the goods he had been considering, and settle before the talesman.

Having gathered his crowd, the talesman would then have launched himself upon his introductory lines.

These lines, when they refer to the ‘scribes of old’ and similar devices, would grant the authority of wise and learned men of the past to the talesman sitting cross-legged on his cloak. ‘It is not I who invent these matters, I merely pass on what I have learnt; better men than I have vouchsafed for their truth and accuracy’ is the implied message.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a marvelous Chinese epic, set in the tumultuous age before the King of Chin won all the marbles, and created, or re-created, the Empire under his sole rule. It exists as a written work, and has been written and, I think, re-written. But the roots of it are oral.

Each chapter of the Romance ends upon a cliff-hanger of sorts, a moment of suspense, some matter not resolved. And then the author asks the obvious question, something like,

Would our hero escape? Read on and you will find out.

If we wish to put that in words suited to the oral reciter, we could say,

Would our hero escape? Listen, and you will find out.

Or,

Would our hero escape? Listen, and I will tell you.

Now, this sort of chapter break could only happen within one recital. Perhaps the talesman grows thirsty, or sees his audience grow a bit weary. Perhaps the break then introduces a short pause or entr’acte. Maybe the aim is to gain some coins in the begging bowl, before continuing.

It may also be that such a tale is broken into smaller parts, each of which suits a short recital, and that longer recitals would then include more than one chapter. This design then allows the talesman to stretch or shrink his performance along the lines of these breaks.

Another idea is that a band of talesmen could be telling these tales; each recites a single chapter, then hands off the telling to his fellow-talesman.

(Composed on keyboard Sunday, May 11, 2008)

Prime the Pump

The tales a talesman hears relate to the tales that he will tell

Text and Sound

For the past few days we’ve been looking at a possible future of talesmanship, when everybody has to work more like peasants, and the leisure times of princes and lords, which the middle class has enjoyed for over a century, fades away again to await the next blossoming of human civilization (if it should ever come again). In such an age, the only tales we will be able to enjoy will be the tales told and listened to, for to read demands that we use both our eyes and our hands — and we those will be occupied with our work.

The question then comes up, how will a new era of oral storytelling differ from the text-based era we have all grown up on?

For us in the audience, the switch will be simple enough. We will just cease to pick up the books that we once read and listen instead, to live recitations or to recordings.

For the talesman, though, things will be quite different.

Hear That You May Speak

One of the best bits of advice for a talesman is to read, that he may learn how to write. But reading will only teach you to write in the same vein as you have read. Tales composed to be read are, as we’ve seen, composed quite differently than tales composed to be recited or performed and heard.

Thus, you must indulge in listening to tales in order that you come to understand better, and intuitively, how to compose your own tales to be listened to.

This involves a quirk of the mind. The tales you take in as audience teach you a sort of model of the tales you will compose as talesman. This creates a sort of pattern, if you will, a modus operandi of how to go about it. A craftsman of any sort, when he examines a piece of work in his field, does so with a second eye, which seeks to sense the manner in which the work was created. This he understands on a deeper level, a right-brain level, the level of muscle memory, of the templates of working in so far as the craftsman understands them.

So it is with the sort of craftsman that is a talesman. When a talesman hears or reads a tale, he does so as reader and audience, but also as the potential composer or re-drafter of the tale. As he reads or listens, he feels as if the true talesman of the tale were leading him by the hand through the process of the composition.

The upshot is that talesmen who would try their hand at a new form of talespinning, such as composing oral tales where they had spent all their careers in composing written tales, must listen to tales with an eye towards understanding, on a deep or intuitive level, how to compose in this new form.

What to Hear

And yet, it is not any tale that you must hear. The radio model can best be learnt by listening to the many recordings of the radio shows of the 1930s to 1950s. The recordings still exist and are available online and on CD. The audiobooks of today, however, will not teach you how to compose tales for recitation. Today’s audiobooks are merely readings from text that was composed to be read off a printed page.

What seems to me best is to hear recordings of tales that were composed to be recited. These would be recorded by ethnographic and folklore scholars. Then you could hear recordings of fairy tales, and modern tales composed after the manner of folk and fairy tales, such as those written by Italo Calvino. Finally you could listen to recordings of tales written to be read, but composed in the past, when oral talesmanship still lingered in the minds of the writers of the day. This last is not the best solution, and represents at best a half-step toward the type of tale you want to model your own tales upon. It does however have the advantage that it lets you listen to works of master talesmen.

If you cannot find recordings of these, then the next best step would be to find printed versions of the tales, and recite them yourself. Record your recitation and listen to it played back. Indeed, this might be the best way to go about it, since you will be more active in recording and reciting, and the training will stick better.

(Composed on keyboard Saturday, May 10, 2008)