Course Description
This course focuses on the use of the voice in verse drama, poetry, and heightened text looking both technically at the use of scansion, figures of speech, diction, phrasing, and at the connection of breath and voice to meaning and intention.
Athena Title
Encountering Heightened Text
Non-Traditional Format
Studio/lab course focusing on solo and group vocal exercises. Class requirements will also include readings, discussions, written assignments, and performance of monologues, poetry, and scenes.
Pre or Corequisite
THEA 7522
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course is designed to develop the use of the voice for work on verse drama, poetry and heightened text. Students will learn the technical elements of form: verse and prose including scansion, rhyme and line endings. They will also study the language itself including vowel and consonant sounds, images, and figures of speech. Techniques will be applied to heightened text in the performance of sonnets, monologues and scenes.
Topical Outline
A. Sound and Meaning 1. Sound and Meaning a. Vowels b. Consonants c. Words and images d. Words into phrases e. Energy throughout the text B. The Form: Verse and Prose 1. Iambic Pentameter 2. Rhyme 3. Line endings 4. Figures of speech: Word Games and Patterns A. Alliteration b. Assonance c. Onomatopoeia d. Antithesis e. Puns f. The ladder 5. Discovery and the movement of thought 6. Argumentation and emotion C. Voice Exercises 1. Linklater a. Breath b. Touch of sound c. Release of sound d. Centering e. Panting 2. Skinner a. Speech and articulation 3. Finding the space 4. Using the poetry 5. Cadence and note D. The Context 1. Cosmically Speaking 2. Stage Directions 3. Double Meaning 4. Bawdry 5. The texts E. Relating to Other Texts 1. Jacobean text 2. Restoration text 3. Formal Modern text