Readers as text processors and performers: A new formula for poetic intonation

Byers (1979) associates a number of characteristics with the intonation of recited verse, for example, slow speech rate, short tone units, narrow pitch range, and falling pitch patterns. Yet, whereas some of these features can be associated with verse recitation in particular, others occur elsewhere, for example, in liturgy and broadcasting, which suggests that they are intonational features not of verse recitation alone but of all vocal performance. In this article, a commercial recording of poetry is compared with a radio news broadcast to establish which prosodie features these two genres have in common and which are peculiar to poetry reading; the former are ascribed to a general “performance style,” and the latter to poetic intonation proper. The question of which communicative and textual needs give rise to these features is discussed. In this way, a new and more refined “formula for poetic intonation” is established.