What’s spoken flies away: The history and art of reading aloud

There’s an old Latin saying from the early Middle Ages: Verba volant, scripta manent — What is written remains, what is spoken flies away. Essentially, it means you should write down your contracts.

But according to Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading, the phrase can be interpreted in a different way: What is written is stuck to the page. It’s only when you give it a voice that it acquires wings and can fly.

This hour: reading out loud. We look at the history of the practice and talk to people who make reading expressive, communal, and loud.

GUESTS:

• Taneisha Duggan: Director, producer, arts consultant, and an artist working at the crossroads of performance and creative leadership
• Dennis Duncan: Lecturer in English at University College London
• Drew John Ladd: Blogger, activist, and the author of Wolfsong Beloved
• Alberto Manguel: Director of Lisbon’s Center for Research into the History of Reading
• Robin Miles: An audiobook narrator and a producer, director, teacher, and actor for theater, television, films, and museums
• Brooke Steinhauser: Programs director at the Emily Dickinson Museum
• Chion Wolf: Host of Audacious on Connecticut Public

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Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.

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