''No theory or discovery has increased our enjoyment of any line in the Sonnets or cleared up any difficulty'. Knox Pooler.

Shakespeare wrote sonnets i.e. words in a fixed poetic form. I suggest a phonetic punctuation occurs, superseding the dominance of grammar, logic and reason in favour of sound, feeling and accumulated meaning. This doesn't mean I'm right. It's a method of breaking down verse.

• Written and read versus spoken and heard.
• The eye and heart versus the ear and mouth.
• Rules and reason versus chaos and passion.

Now what we are dealing with is the difference between literature and theatre. Shakespeare's poems are dramatic and therefore similar to his plays.

Literary theory dates back to Aristotle and his 'Poetics', whereas literary criticism started in the 18th Century. Shakespeare used and abused the theories of his time and he didn't care about his critics.

'My adder's sense to critic and to flatterer stopped are'. Q112.

If we break words down to the individual letters and letter clusters that go into making up a word, a sentence can be a fascinating realm for a while. Letters in English represent sound on a ratio of 26 written to about 40 spoken.

Pick a sentence, utterance, phrase, or clause, and do this. Break down the letters into their sound. When is a d a t, or an f a v, an s a z, or a p a b?

There are liquid variations, about three 'r' variations, two 'l' variations; some affricate checks and jumps; silky sibilant sections; fricative frictions; and nasal moanings.

There are vowels, ooo; diphthongs, boy o boy; and rarely, triphthongs. (pronounced: diff and triff thongs btw).

Breath is the motor of speech. Speech is thoughts shaped into consonants and vowels, given voice on the breath, in mono- and poly-syllabic bursts. Our thoughts and desires lead us into actions that we find necessary wants or delightful needs.

Language is learnt through the ear and the mouth. Only later does the mind engage the eye to learn to read, with all the grammar that entails. We talk to ourselves in our heads but it's not the same thing as speech.

That inner voice is not speech. Those fantasies, imaginings and thoughts rise from a stirring breast, home of the heart, our chief organ. The thought or rather heart rests on the diaphragm, the seat of emotion. The lungs envelop the heart and cushion it with breath.

The diaphragm is the trampoline-like muscle that seperates the upper from the lower torso, which corresponds to our higher and lower natures. Cultivate diaphragm breathing if you need support and want to project your voice. Its quality is not strained.

This prose style is driven by my passion and not my reason. I speak the words in my head and balance their bounce. My face dances a myriad of moods and my breathing quickens as I silently type the letters. I wish I was fluid and nonchalant with a witty twist, but I am slow and plodding with a repetitive hiss.

The session clearly shows and defines the form and layers of feeling in a sonnet. Plus the quickening of thoughts and levels of meaning that grammar and syntax in turn bring.

This method focuses on a specific or random sonnet and explores the dynamics of the written and spoken word:

• from a word to its sounds (phonemes),
  
• to the principles of the syllable (morpheme),
  
• to a look at mono- and poly-syllabic words and their utterance,
  
• to examine phrases and their rhythms
• and finally the spoken or performed sonnet.

To book a workshop in the Netherlands, Germany or England please contact . .

. . Mr. William Sutton