So I've been practicing for my group's presentation of the Odyssey for tomorrow, and I've realized how tough it is to narrate. There's a really fine line between summarizing what happens and actually narrating. I'm pretty sure I'm still doing a mixture of both. It really makes me wonder about oral traditions way back when. They must have practice a ton in order to actually narrate the story. I mean, yes, reciting stories was a bigger part of society back then than it is today, but that doesn't mean it's any easier! It might become easier after you have to practice a lot, but there's still the first few times where you need to learn to narrate rather than summarize.
So keeping that in mind, there's also the problem of speaking slowly so everybody can follow what you're saying and making sure that you enunciate so people can hear what you're saying. Doing this is especially challenging for me because I just absolutely HATE talking in front of people for a presentation. I stutter really badly (in a way that reminds me of my sister's stuttering on certain words like lettuce) and sometimes I even break out into a sweat. I can't help but wonder if there were people back then that would also be nervous talking in front of people. Would they have a hard time telling the story because they were too focused on trying to finish as quickly as they could? Maybe some of them wouldn't be able to recite the poem/story and just had to give up their dreams of being an amazing storyteller.
While I haven't given up my dreams of being the world's best storyteller who's named Eric W. Kong, I don't think I'll achieve that goal anytime soon. So, if anybody reads this post before tomorrow, I sincerely apologize if I speak too quickly or don't enunciate clearly. And if I'm not really narrating, I will also be really sorry. That's all from me today!
It's maybe especially challenging, or artificial, to *narrate* a story you're getting from another source (as I'm asking you to do here). Our more customary mode when recounting something we've read is to summarize, and telling the story as if it were your own has a necessary aspect of artificiality.
ReplyDeleteBut all of us narrate, quite naturally, all the time--when we tell anecdotes about stuff that's happened to us, or we witness. We don't even think of ourselves as "narrating"--we just tell the story.
It wasn't my task to narrate the story; I merely had to analyze the book. I can imagine, however that there would be a very fine line between actually narrating and summarizing. I am sure most of us are nervous when presenting, but, just like professionals today, I sure the ancient greek performers would be experienced and would deal with this stress better.
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