Recitation

In class, I recited a piece from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In chapter 10, “The Lobster Quadrille”, the mock turtle and gryphon show Alice a dance, which they call the lobster quadrille. Following this, Alice tries to recites the poem “Tis the voice of the lobster,” and then “I passed by his garden.” Initially I read these two poems and thought it would take me a very long time to memorize these sixteen lines, especially because they did not make very much sense to me. However, when I started to read these poems and pay more attention to the words they actually made sense. I also become aware of a certain rhythm of the poem that helped with the “flow” of the poem. In addition, I noticed the rhyme scheme of the poems. The last word of every two lines rhymed. This was actually very helpful in remembering the phrases. For instance, the third line of “Tis the voice of the lobster,” reads, “As the duck with his eyelids, so he with his nose.” To me, this made absolutely no sense. I mean, what does the eyelids of the duck have anything to do with the nose of the lobster? So trying to find the connection that would lead to the next line would have been difficult it were not for the rhyme scheme. The fact that “nose” rhymes with “toes” really helped me make the connection between the lines. I think the best way to start memorizing something, is to take it one line at a time, otherwise, it becomes too overwhelming. However, in my case, the poems are comprised of several couplets, so pinning down two lines at a time was useful.

 I was also able to easily memorize the poems using different techniques that use various senses. For instance, along with reading the poem on paper several times, I also read it out loud so I could hear it. I even tried to listen to someone else read it.  Along with this, I wrote the poem down and highlighted the specific words that I had a hard time remembering. In my opinion, hearing it, seeing it, writing it, and saying it help engrain the words in your memory.

Finally the most important thing to memorizing is repeat, repeat, repeat!!!! And the more I repeated it, the clearer image I got of the poem in my head. When trying to memorize the second poem, “I passed by his garden and marked with one eye,” I literally imaged walking past a garden and seeing a panther and owl sharing a pie. This image was without a doubt very absurd but its absurdity is what allowed this image to stick in my head. When reciting the poem, I felt as if I was telling a story, the story of the mental image I had developed from reading the poem over and over again.