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Recitation   /rˌɛsətˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Recitation

noun
1.
Written matter that is recited from memory.
2.
A public instance of reciting or repeating (from memory) something prepared in advance.  Synonyms: reading, recital.
3.
A regularly scheduled session as part of a course of study.  Synonyms: class period, course session.
4.
Systematic training by multiple repetitions.  Synonyms: drill, exercise, practice, practice session.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Recitation" Quotes from Famous Books



... and revising the old hymns to be included in the collection. He was an inspiring but at times difficult co-worker. Martensen recalls how Grundtvig at times aroused the committee to enthusiasm by an impromptu talk on hymnody or a recitation of one of the old hymns, which he loved so well. But he also recalls how he sometimes flared up and stormed out of the committee room in anger over some proposed change or correction of his work. When his anger subsided, however, he always conscientiously attempted to effect ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... row,—a girl to whom Katherine Kittredge had once given the title of "Harding's champion blunderbuss." She could no more help doing the wrong thing than she could help breathing. She had begun her freshman year by opening the door into Dr. Hinsdale's recitation-room, while a popular senior course was in session. "I beg your pardon, but are you Miss Stuart?" she had asked, looking full at the amazed professor, and upon receiving a gasping denial she had withdrawn, famous, to reappear now and then during her course always in similar ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... After Aytoun's version framed by collation from copies given by Motherwell, Kinloch, and Buchan. These were in the main recovered by recitation, although there is a broadside copy of the ballad in the Pepysian collection at Cambridge. Fragments of the story have been handed down in tavern-songs and nursery-rhymes, and it is to be found, more or less disguised, in the literatures of many countries, ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)

... noble sentiments of these verses, and their exquisite diction—in which every word is the best that could possibly be used—as in a piece of faultless mosaic every minute stone is so placed as to impart strength, brilliancy, and harmony—they afford an excellent example of lofty, dignified recitation: ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... choice of the people. Even as a boy he had a countenance of serene beauty, and to the gifts of Nature he added the endowments of the mind. From his parents in household lays he learned the great deeds of the old Decii. Once, at a great spectacle, the whole school at the recitation of the Lay of the Decii turned their eyes on Importunus, discerning that he would one day rival his ancestors. Thus his widowed mother brought him up, him and all his troop of brothers, and gave to ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... naughty boy," said Clemence. "I think Johnny is one of the best behaved boys in school. He is so quiet that I hardly know he is there, except when he is reading his lessons, and those he always has well learned. He very seldom fails with a recitation." ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... the possession of the right information necessary, but the pupil should be in the right mood for the lesson. A class that has just returned to the room after the games at recess is not in the proper state of mind to appreciate, at once, the recitation by the teacher of, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... a stranger, "Can you speak of the days of Fingal?" If the answer was in the affirmative, then the neighbors were summoned, and poems and old tales would be the order until the hour of midnight. The reciter threw into the recitation all the powers of his soul and gave vent to the sentiment. Both sexes always participated in ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... ethnologist, ecclesiastic or tourist. A brief description can give but a faint idea of these ceremonies, but may serve to arouse an interest in the matter. In the early morning of St. Jerome's day, a black-robed Indian makes a recitation from the top of the pueblo to the assembled multitude below. In the plaza stands a pine tree pole, fifty feet in height, and from a cross-piece at top dangles a live sheep, with legs tied together and back down. Besides the sheep, a garland ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... very good recitation," said Hilda, approvingly, as she laid the book down. "You shall have another ballad to-day as a reward. But, Bubble," she added, rather seriously, "I do wish you would not use so much slang. It is so senseless! Now what did you mean by saying 'just like pie,' in speaking ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... speech when he talked of affairs on land and when he attempted to deal with nautical matters. The clear, dispassionate finality of his tone when phosphates, or railroads, or navy yards, or imperial loans were concerned, left him, and changed to something very like a recitation of trigonometry well memorized but not at all mastered; he could do that particular sum, but you mustn't stop him; and I concluded that I would rather have Charley for my captain during a panic in Wall Street than in a ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... I got to go to a mathematics recitation, Bill. You make yourself comfortable, and I'll be back ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... save that it glowed with an intense heat. I was, however, at ease enough to write a sublime piece of blank verse on the cataract; and, proud of my production, I attempted reading it to Cousin William. But William had taken lessons in recitation under the great Mr. Thelwall, politician and elocutionist; and deeming it proper to set me right in all the words which I mispronounced—three out of every four at least, and not unfrequently the fourth word ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... Edinburgh intends at the close of the scholastic year to hold examinations in the following subjects: (1) For boys in the fourth class of the Academy - Geometry and Algebra; (2) For boys at Mr. Henderson's school - Dictation and Recitation; (3) For boys taught exclusively by their mothers - Arithmetic and Reading.' Prizes were given; but what prize would be so conciliatory as this boyish little joke? It may read thin here; it would smack racily in the playroom. Whenever his sons 'started a new fad' (as ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... important branches. The objects which are really most important. Advanced scholars. Examination of school and scholars at the outset. Acting on numbers. Extent to which it may be carried. Recitation and Instruction. ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... two characteristic anecdotes about a well-known Harvard professor, Sophocles, or "Sophy," as he was generally called. He was an excellent teacher, but he had his favorites, whom he would never allow to fail in recitation. One day the question under discussion was the dark color of the water of a certain river. "Why was the water dark?" said Sophocles. One pupil ventured, "Because it was so deep." "That is not right. The next." "Because of the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... Counter-reformation, lost the control of the academies: and here, as elsewhere, Latin poetry was replaced by Italian. Before long every town of the least importance had its academy, with some strange, fantastic name, and its own endowment and subscriptions. Besides the recitation of verses, the new institutions inherited from their predecessors the regular banquets and the representation of plays, sometimes acted by the members themselves, sometimes under their direction by young amateurs, and sometimes by paid players. The fate ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... himself to hear not the leaders themselves, but Pollio's recitation of their exploits. There is nothing weak in this, as Orelli thinks. Horace has not seen Pollio's work, but compliments him by saying that he can imagine what its finest passages will be like—"I can fancy how you will glow in your description of the great ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... best results the following plan, tested by experience, is suggested: Let the assigned lesson be wrought out and recorded by the pupil in the cheap tablet. At the next recitation let this recorded lesson be read and corrected. At the following recitation this lesson first assigned and corrected is to be recited from memory. So at each recitation the following will be the general order: (1) The assigning of the advance lesson. (2) The reading and correction ...
— A Bird's-Eye View of the Bible - Second Edition • Frank Nelson Palmer

... which but a few hours before was uttering a supplication to the Most High to make us all good, punched a thin elder in the ribs with his thumb and said: "Jim, do you remember the time we carried the cow and calf up into the recitation room?" For a moment "Jim" was inclined to stand on his dignity, and he looked pained, until they all began to laugh, when he looked around to see if any worldly person was present, and satisfying himself that we were all ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... of playing "Chitterbob" a paper horn used to be twisted into the player's hair for each mistake made in the recitation, and at the end these horns could be got rid ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... Restoration of Charles II., and has been the scene, doubtless, of many ceremonials and high banquetings since that period; and, among other illustrious personages, Queen Victoria has honored it with her presence. Thence we went into several recitation or lecture rooms in various parts of the buildings; but they were all of an extreme plainness, very unlike the rich old Gothic libraries and chapels and halls which we saw in Oxford. Indeed, the contrast ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... themselves by conversing in distinctly audible tones. Jammed in a doorway, between the persons who are trying to get in, and the people who would be only too glad to get out, is an Unsophisticated Guest who doesn't know a soul, and is consequently reduced to listening to the Recitation. This ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various

... from that of some later critics! Whatever might be thought of the poem, 'his face was as a book where men might read strange matters,' and he announced the fate of his hero in prophetic tones. There is a chaunt in the recitation both of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearer, and disarms the judgement. Perhaps they have deceived themselves by making habitual use of this ambiguous accompaniment. Coleridge's manner is more full, animated, and varied; ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... floors were arranged in the most approved single bed-chambers or suites for the teachers and the seniors, the lower ones were accurately divided into living, dining and reception rooms. In one wing were the model recitation rooms and Miss Woodhull's office; in another the undergraduate's rooms. Nor had the grounds been overlooked. They were very trim, very prim, very perfectly kept and made one realize this at every turn. It also made one wonder how the old owner would feel could he return from his nameless ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... necessity be with me in the lecture-room and at recitations. I should do all my written work on a typewriter, and if a Professor could not understand my speech, I could write out my answers to his questions and hand them to him after the recitation. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... two years, Pierce was extremely inattentive to his college duties, bestowing only such modicum of time upon them as was requisite to supply the merest superficial acquaintance with the course of study for the recitation room. The consequence was that when the relative standing of the members of the class was first authoritatively ascertained, in the junior year, he found himself occupying precisely the lowest position ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... schools mentioned by him was one in which the scholars were inadequately provided with dormitory and recitation room facilities, and where the industries were crowded into old ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various

... this new club which I propose to organize will be one of welfare. The girls will do more for themselves as a self-governing body than I can possibly do for them. By the way, I wonder if Miss Ward is up yet. She overslept and missed her first recitation yesterday morning. She came down to the dining-room long after breakfast was over. Susan was rather upset over having to serve an extra breakfast. I was obliged to tell Miss Ward that if it occurred ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower

... of Pushkin in her hand; she did not, however, glance at it once during her recitation.... She was obviously nervous, the little book shook slightly in her fingers. Aratov observed also the expression of weariness which now overspread all her stern features. The first line, 'I write to you ... what more?' she uttered exceedingly simply, almost naively, and with a naive, genuine, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... I have described and the first. The large school-room is filled. More than one hundred and twenty-five students are arranged in classes, most of whom are standing in their places ready to pass to recitation rooms. One of their number is at the piano. Another stands at the desk to give the word of command. Now he strikes the bell and the pupils in long file pass out, marching with their heads up. Not a teacher is in sight. Everything is orderly and is running of itself, as it does every ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various

... nothing. Yet no actual thinking has such transcendent aims. It is content with selections relative to a concrete situation. If it were permissible to diversify a debate—e.g., about the authorship of the Odyssey—by an irruption of undisputed truths—e.g., a recitation of the multiplication table—how would it be possible to distinguish a philosopher from ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray

... himself the auditor, as he was also the hero, and probably the author, of the whole book. It must have been a great sight to have seen the ex-minister, as bolt upright as a starched ruff and laced cassock could make him, seated in state beneath his canopy, and listening to the recitation of his compilers, while, standing bare in his presence, they informed him gravely, "Thus said the duke—so did the duke infer—such were your grace's sentiments upon this important point—such were your secret ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... enough." The contrariness which spiked his tongue whenever Karara was present made him say that without thinking. Then the twitch of Ashe's lip brought home Ross's error. Gordon needed reassurance now, not a recitation of the various ways ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... faintly forth, something which courtesy interpreted into a song, which was all very classical, and strictly in character, because Apollo was himself a composer, and composers can very seldom sing their own music or anybody else's, either. This was succeeded by Mrs. Leo Hunter's recitation of her far-famed 'Ode to an Expiring Frog,' which was encored once, and would have been encored twice, if the major part of the guests, who thought it was high time to get something to eat, had not said that it was perfectly shameful to take advantage of Mrs. Hunter's good nature. So although ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... citation is from a charming letter in which Pliny (Bk. v. letter 17) tells Spurinna the pleasure he had just received from a recitation by a noble youth in the house of Calpurnius Piso, and how, when it was over, he gave the youth many kisses and praises, congratulated his mother and his brother, in whom, as the reciter tried his powers, first fear for him and then delight in him was ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... troubled that her recitation marks were not as high as they should have been. The teachers began to question her, for Ruth Fielding's course at Briarwood had been a triumphant ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... country boys of the class a decided drawback to his social status. So the country boys decided to "get even," and they needed no other leader while Russell Conwell was about. Finally it came the dandy's turn to go on the platform to deliver a recitation. Just as he stepped out of the little anteroom before the audience, Russell, with deft fingers, fastened a paper jumping-jack to the tail of his coat, where it dangled back of his legs in plain view of the ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... fortune by works, not words, woman," said Foster-father sternly. "So proceed, friend Faithful; the recitation of brave ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... the true aim of organization, but certainly in consolidated rural schools no such degree of refinement need be reached or feared. Grading can remain here in the golden mean and will be beneficial to pupils and teachers alike. The pupils thus graded will have more time for recitation and instruction, and teachers will have more time to do efficient work. In the one-room rural school one teacher usually has eight grades and often more, and sometimes she is required to conduct thirty or forty different recitations in a day. Under such conditions the lack of time ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy

... across the image. He sits down; meditates; places rice and durwa grass on the image—places a flower on his own head, and then on the top of the image; then another flower on the image, and another, and another—accompanying each act with the recitation of sacred spells; places white powder, flowers, bilva-leaves, incense, meat-offerings, rice, plantains, and a lamp before the image; repeats the name of Siva, with praises, then prostrates himself before the image. In the evening he returns, washes his feet, prostrates himself before the door, ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... deference, but for inward submission. The conscience, the heart, the will must bow to its authority. A respect which lies on the surface only of the character, or which glides from the tongue like the schoolboy's recitation of a few well-conned sentences, is not what the Christian owes to his religion, nor what it will accept in place of that homage of the soul which is the only proof of an insight into its nature. Strange that men should ever think to deceive God by playing the parrot or the ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett

... know. Accordingly, they were taken to the University of Chicago and turned over to the department of anthropology. The learned expounders of this science were not long in devising a simple means of communication. The twelve unfortunates were seated upon a recitation bench and a doctor of philosophy wrote out an alphabet upon ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... to-morrow, Friday, the 25th, on behalf of the victims of the war, the fifth act of "Hernani" by the actors of the Theatre Francais and the last act of "Lucrece Borgia" by the actors of the Porte Saint Martin, and in addition the recitation as an intermede of extracts from Les Chatiments, Les Contemplations and La Legende ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... in with a Sunday-school picnic along in the glen, and Archie made me take him there. And he had tea—I hope the little chap won't be ill, by the by. And he made a speech or a recitation or something of the sort. Nobody understood it, but it went ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... recitation in Italian by Mrs. Forrest to rob Sissy Madigan, judge and executioner, of her complacency after this. Then Aunt Anne recited "The Bairnies Cuddle Doon" charmingly, as she always did, but most Hibernianly, with that ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... selections marked for recitation. The public recitation of these extracts will banish awkwardness of manner, beget self-confidence, and lay the foundation for subsequent elocutionary work. Besides, experience teaches that a single poem or address based upon some heroic ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... have before read, and they lose nothing by my recollection of your manner of reciting 'em, for I too bear in mind "the voice, the look," of absent friends, and can occasionally mimic their manner for the amusement of those who have seen 'em. Your impassioned manner of recitation I can recall at any time to mine own heart and to the ears of the bystanders. I rather wish you had left the monody on Chatterton concluding, as, it did, abruptly. It had more of unity. The conclusion of your "Religious Musicgs," I fear, will entitle you to the reproof of your beloved ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... recite and I made money by reciting on many of the trips. Since the surrender I have traveled in the north for various Charitable Negro Societies and Institutions and people seemed very much interested in the recitation I recited called "When ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... perhaps, have been stronger had Mallinson related to him the way in which he had been received at the house of the Le Mesuriers after his dinner with Drake. When he arrived he found the guests staring hard at each other silently, with the vacant expression which comes of an effort to understand a recitation in a homely dialect from the north of the Tweed. He waited in the doorway and suddenly saw Miss Le Mesurier rise from an embrasure in the window and take half a step towards him. Then she paused and ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... Private Allanson. Song Private "Sport" Edwards. Song Private Bolt. Recitation "Voice of Gallipoli" Private Carr. Song "Queen of Angels" Private Rolfe. Song Private Allanson. Song Private Piggott. Sketch "Chrysanthemums" Corpl. Haydock. Song Private Carr. Recitation Lieut. Field. ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett

... instrument, the cithern, was preferred by the Greeks to all wind instruments because it was not exciting, and allowed the accompaniment of recitation or song, i.e. the contemporaneous activity of the spirit in poetry. Flute-playing was first brought from Asia Minor after the victorious progress of the Persian war, and was especially cultivated in Thebes. They sought ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... pupil failed on some point in recitation, he could retrieve himself by reciting it correctly later with extra information on the point, gathered from the reference books, and thus he was saved from humiliation and discouragement, and at the same ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... his two aides-de-camp, Captain Tiago, the alcalde, the alferez, and Ibarra, and preceded by the guards, to open a passage, was to view the procession from the house of the gobernadorcillo. This functionary had built a platform for the recitation of a loa, a religious poem in ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... enabled to assure Miss CAROWTHERS, in confidence, that nothing eligible for publication in the New York Sun had really occurred. Thus, when the legal conqueror of Breachy Mr. BLODGETT entered that principal recitation-room of the Macassar, formally known as the Cackleorium, she had no difficulty in explaining ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... tadbhavabhavitah; Bha. Gi. VIII, 6).—By 'works' (kriya) is understood the performance, according to one's ability, of the five great sacrifices. The authoritative passages here are 'This person who performs works is the best of those who know Brahman' (Mu. Up. III, 1, 4); and 'Him Brahmanas seek to know by recitation of the Veda, by sacrifice, by gifts, by penance, by fasting' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 22).—By virtuous conduct (kalyanani) are meant truthfulness, honesty, kindness, liberality, gentleness, absence of covetousness. Confirmatory texts are 'By truth ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... and always to commit the text to memory. If memory should fail them in a crisis, they would be extremely liable to have their ears pulled by the priest, or to be made to kneel upon the floor with outstretched arms, thus making the recitation somewhat of a tragedy; but there are also prizes for the meritorious. One book includes the whole curriculum—religion, table manners, grammar, "numbers," and geography—arranged in catechisms of convenient length. The boys are separated ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... education has been taxed with a want of truth and nature. It was complained that an education to things was not given. We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing. We cannot use our hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our arms. We do not know an edible root in the woods, we cannot tell our course by the stars, nor the ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... The recitation of his memories moved the good old doctor as the actual experience must have moved the young man of forty years before. He rose, and walked to the window, sniffing the scent of the flowers ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... in his appreciation and fineness of choice, and he read for Mary with all the effectiveness and warmth of color that he would put into a recitation for a large audience, carried on solely by his one sympathetic listener and his love for what he read; while Betty, in her corner close to the lamp behind her father's chair, listened unnoticed, with ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... heard her chant these lines he ended his recitation of the chapter, and began also to sing and repeated the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... hard work. The fact that Teacher took no delight in traveling the prosaic highways of addition, multiplication and division, but could be easily lured to wander the flowery lanes of romantic fiction, was soon grasped by the downstairs pupils. The hour set for recitation by the first class in arithmetic was often and often monopolized by a hold-over of the first class in reading, while Miss Floretta, artfully spurred by questions asked by the older scholars, rhapsodized on the beauties of James Fenimore Cooper's "Uncas," or Dickens' ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... presidents, princes, prime ministers, congresses, parliaments, and all other representatives of material strength, may repeat for formal use the conventional clause; but there is always what we flippantly know as a "joker" in the lip-recitation. "Kingdom, power, and glory," we can hear ourselves saying in a heart-aside, "lie in money, guns, commerce, and police. God is not sufficiently a force in the affairs of this world for us to give Him more than the consideration ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... After my recitation he would lean back in the arm-chair and relate anecdotes of great men and women to a small, but deeply interested audience of three, including Giallo. A few well-timed questions were quite sufficient to open his inexhaustible reservoir of reminiscences. Nor had Landor reason to complain of his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... study of Part I. before coming into class, pupils should not be allowed to open it during recitation, unless on rare occasions to settle doubtful or disputed points. The very best method will be found to be to have the examples included in the lesson, with any others that may be added, copied on the blackboard before recitation, and no books ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... care of your actions," retorted Miss Dill tartly, and turning to one of the other girls called upon her for a recitation. ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler

... language was totally unlike anything ever heard on the earth. And yet, deliberately if somewhat cringingly, the voice proceeded with what was apparently a recitation. There were modulations, pauses, sentences; but seemingly the paragraphs were all short and ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint

... me any disappointment, as I quite expected things to be like this. Several persons had protested in my favour. Camille Doucet, who was a member of the jury, had pleaded a long time. He wanted me to have a first prize in spite of my bad recitation. He said that my examination results ought to be taken into account, and they were excellent; and then, too, I had the best class reports. Nothing, however, could overcome the bad effect produced that day by my nasal voice, my swollen face, and my heavy ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... assured, together with everything found on me when I was brought here, were in safe keeping, and would be given up to me on my restoration to health. This place was called the SCHLEMIHLIUM: the daily recitation I had heard was an exhortation to pray for Peter Schlemihl as the founder and benefactor of this institution. The benevolent-looking man whom I had seen by my bedside was Bendel; the beautiful lady in black was Minna. I had been enjoying the advantages of the Schlemihlium without being recognized; ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various

... be said twenty times following, with the help of a string with twenty knots in it, which serves as a rosary. This material detail has its importance; it ensures mechanical recitation, which is essential. ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue

... bell for classes sounded and the girls picked up their books. At the second bell they filed out through the corridor to their various recitation rooms. As Grace, who had stopped to look for a lost pencil, hurried toward the geometry classroom, she passed Julia Crosby, who was moping along, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. Julia cast an angry glance at ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... a chaunt in the recitation both of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearers."—Hazlitt's My First Acquaintance with Poets; The ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... the silence bell rang, and then conversation instantly ceased, and the recitation of some Latin prayers commenced, which continued half ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... to be the most-hated official of the century; and the furious groans of undergraduate displeasure at his presence, continuing unabated for three-quarters of an hour, compelled Wynter, the Vice-Chancellor, to break up the Assembly, without recitation of the prizes, but not without conferring the degrees in dumb show: unconscious Mr. Everett smilingly took his place in red gown among the Doctors, the Vice- Chancellor asserting afterwards, what was true in the ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... in school-rooms, recitation-rooms, lecture-rooms, offices, court-rooms, conference-rooms, and vestries, where young students of law, medicine, and theology acquire their earlier practice, is something simply appalling. Of itself it would answer for men the question, why so many thousand glad, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... intentional. Certainly but little enthusiasm could be expected from the crowd, had the text of the amnesty been heard. It consisted of three parts—a recitation of the wrongs committed, a statement of the terms of pardon, and a long list of exceptions. All the sins of omission and commission, the heresy, the public preaching, the image-breaking, the Compromise, the confederacy, the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... complain; she did not take any one into her confidence. Even to her sisters she was gloomy and silent. She took long walks by herself. She neglected no duty—that is, no apparent duty—and her lessons progressed swimmingly. Her two great talents—the one for music, the other for recitation—were bringing her into special notice amongst the different teachers. She was looked upon by the educational staff as a girl who might bring marked distinction to the school. Thus the last few days of that ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... known young ladies of better manners or more cultivated minds. As an evidence of more expansive benevolence than usual, and of profounder interest in the affairs of the great world abroad, I remember that when the class of students in Goldsmith's Ancient History came to recitation, one young lady burst into a torrent of tears. The astonished teacher anxiously inquired into the cause of her emotion. In the midst of her sobs she ejaculated, "Oh, that good man, Socrates! To think ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... angels with a trumpet, and a great voice, and they shall gather the elect upon the four winds. Two shall be in the fields; one shall be taken and the other left." He suddenly broke off the recitation with a heartpiercing cry. "My Lord and my God! Let none of Thy children here be left. Let none of those loved ones, for whom they have come here to entreat Thee, be among those who are left. Let it suffice Thee, Lord, that these have come to meet Thee on Thy way, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... in its appeals—the love for poetry always more diffused throughout a people, in proportion as it is less written than recited. How few, even at this day, will read a poem!— what crowds will listen to a song! Recitation transfers the stage of effect from the closet to the multitude—the public becomes an audience, the poet an orator. And when we remember that the poetry, thus created, imbodying the most vivid, popular, animated subjects of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the company of the most eminent actors; he got himself introduced to the managers of the theatres, and tried his talent in the recitation of some particular and favorite portions of plays. Now and then he indulged himself in the practice of mimicry, a talent which, however inferior, is never willingly resigned by him who excels in it. Sometimes ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... he was struggling with Andy. Forward and backward then went over the clear recitation space. The ruler was dropped in the scrimmage. As Mr. Darrow stooped to repossess it, Andy ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness

... backwardness in studies lead to additional study hours or to regrading? b. Are there too many subjects? c. Are the recitation periods too long? d. Are the exercise periods too short and too few? e. Is there too much close-range work? f. Is it possible to give individual attention to individual needs so as to ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... it is settled at last. He writes to his friend, "Rejoice with me, for to-morrow I shall be free. Without saying a word to any one, I shall quietly proceed to Dane Law College to recitation. Now shall I be happy again as far as that ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... the value of this daily exercise. In the ancient history class, printed questions were shuffled and distributed among the students, and question and answer were spoken out promptly by each scholar, giving an attractive quickness and vivacity to the recitation. The class of little Indian geographers stood before a table on which was a miniature United States made of sand, with its Eastern elevations, its great central plains, and its high Western ranges. A thread of blue worsted, ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 07, July, 1885 • Various

... constant endeavor to connect their poems with those of this master, so that they might form a great cycle, were called the Cyclic Poets. They were probably Homeric rhapsodists by profession, to whom the constant recitation of the ancient Homeric poems would naturally suggest the idea of continuing them by essays of their own. The poems known as Homeric hymns formed an essential part of the epic style. They were hymns to the gods, bearing an epic character, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... recitation or spelling match his father's millions did not aid him in competing with Patsy Halloran, the mathematical prodigy whose father was a hod-carrier, nor with Mona Sanguinetti who was a wizard at spelling and whose widowed mother ran a vegetable store. Nor were his father's millions ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... may be given as a recitation by changing the title to "Puerto Rico." The words apply to this island as well as to the island which ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George

... wrinkling the carefully pressed suits or shifting solicitously the sharpened trousers in peril of a bagging at the knees. Heavens! how interminable the hour was, sitting there in a planked shirt and a fashion-high collar—and what a recitation! Would Easter ever begin, that long-coveted vacation when the growing boy, according to theory, goes home to rest from the fatiguing draining of his brain, but in reality returns exhausted by dinners, dances, and theaters, with perhaps a little touch of the measles to exchange ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... difficulty in writing an essay on "Electricity in the Treatment of Nervous Diseases." They do not know about it. A boy in school probably knows something of fishing; of this he can write. A girl can tell of "The Last Parlor Concert." Both could write very entertainingly of their "First Algebra Recitation;" neither could write a convincing essay on "The ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... nothing would satisfy Norah but another recitation, and another after that; and then the timber ended, and there was only the level plain be tween them and home, with the moon just high enough to make it sufficiently light for a gallop. They tore wildly homeward, ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... this expectation. They spent two years at Ghent. Marshall and his brother obtained instruction during this period from the little white children who attended school, after hours, using "an old hay loft back of a Mr. Sanders's Tavern" for a recitation-room, and paying their teachers with cakes and candies bought with odd ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... be sanitary, they should be beautiful. What influences one most at college, and makes most for one's happiness, is not the fact of the work in recitation-rooms, out of books, laboratories, and under teachers. The glory of college life is, that wherever one goes, the eyes look out on beauty, and wherever one works, there are those whom we ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... taken down from the recitation of a woman eighty years old, was accompanied with some explanatory notes, characteristic of the dry antiquary, thus: "Hardriding Dick is not an epithet referring to horsemanship, but means Richard Ridley of Hardriding, the seat of another family of that name, which, in the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... and eighty to two hundred recitation periods of forty-five minutes each, minus the holidays, opening exercises, athletic mass meetings, and other respites, in which to teach a thousand years of ancient history, twenty centuries of English history, or the story ...
— The Teaching of History • Ernest C. Hartwell

... like a wandering minstrel in a distant square, insists on singing, "Cheer, Boys, Cheer," or, "Tommy, make room for your uncle" (tunes I cannot abide), with words, accompaniment, and all, complete, and not quite so refined an accent as I could wish; so that I have to leave off my recitation and whistle "J'ai du Bon Tabac" in quite a ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... imitations or revivals of the ancient Greek theatre in other languages. A chorus is found in Milton's Samson Agonistes. The Elizabethan dramatists applied the name to a single character employed for the recitation of prologues or epilogues. Apart from the uses of the term in drama, the word "chorus" has been employed chiefly in music. It is used of any organized body of singers, in opera, oratorio, cantata, &c., and, in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... tired out and tasteless; his coal is a sullen, sulphurous anthracite, which rusts into ashes, rather than burns, in the shallow grate; his flimsy broadcloth is too thin for winter and too thick for summer. The greedy lungs of fifty hot-blooded boys suck the oxygen from the air he breathes in his recitation-room. In short, he undergoes a process ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... Speech. — N. speech, faculty of speech; locution, talk, parlance, verbal intercourse, prolation[obs3], oral communication, word of mouth, parole, palaver, prattle; effusion. oration, recitation, delivery, say, speech, lecture, harangue, sermon, tirade, formal speech, peroration; speechifying; soliloquy &c. 589; allocution &c. 586; conversation &c. 588; salutatory : screed: valedictory [U.S.][U.S.]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Ryan of St. Louis, and a most eloquent address by a priest, who had been a young Boer officer, he inspired Irish patriotism by an elegant appeal against "Old England." He was indeed an orator who, by his recitation, held the audience for an hour. I was one who was nearest to him on the platform and congratulated him on his ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... rapped on his desk and the school came to order. Then, for a while, it became like other schools. A glance over the room enabled him to enter the names of the absentees, and those tardy. There was a song by the school, the recitation in concert of Little Brown Hands, some general remarks and directions by the teacher, and the primary pupils came forward for their reading exercises. A few classes began poring over their text-books, but most of the pupils had their work passed out to them in the form of hectograph copies ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... gentlemen on the same terms and conditions; take them together into the recitation-room, where they recite side by side; require them to pursue the same course of study; and, when satisfactorily completed, give them degrees of the same rank and honor—Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts to gentlemen, Laureate of Science and Laureate of Arts to ladies. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... what thirsty work studying is! Scarcely is the second recitation over before your throat begins to feel dry, and up goes your hand—"May ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson

... it fell out that the Lord Giovanni was oftener at the Palace than at the Castle, and during that summer Pesaro was given over to such merrymaking as it had never known before. There was endless lute-thrumming and recitation of verses by a score of parasite poets whom the Lord Giovanni encouraged, posing now as a patron of letters; there were balls and masques and comedies beyond number, and we were as gay as though Italy held no Cesare Borgia, Duke of ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... forms of entertainment were added. Of these Dr. Dawson wrote: "Evening gatherings at regular intervals during the session were arranged, and cards of invitation for these were sent to the different classes or years in rotation. At such gatherings there was usually music, sometimes a short recitation or address on some topic of interest, and scientific instruments, specimens and photographs were shown, simple refreshments provided, and every effort made to cause those who attended to feel thoroughly at home." ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... undergoing the process of lionization. He has introduced a new feature into his representation of the part, by the recitation in public of his own verses. He has produced for the Great London Exhibition a "Hymn for all Nations," which is to be translated into thirty different languages, set to music, and printed. This polyglott will be a philological curiosity, if ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... reading, though they were the Peter-Parley edition, seemed about enough food for a child that was hungering and thirsting for a doll like Judith Collin's, and for capacity to outrun the neighboring boys. To be sure the recitation in concert, where the names of the asteroids, only four in number (instead of a million and four) were brought out by some of us, as "vesper," "pallid," "you know," and "serious" showed that we did not confine ourselves too closely to ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.

... "invention" of opera, that is the word which may be applied to the work of Jacopo Peri and his friends. They, however, thought of it rather as a revival of the manner of the ancient Greek tragedy, which was, in a sense, a crude form of Wagnerian recitation, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... statesman of his country. Lord Cockburn, who was a schoolmate of Horner, relates that the latter was at one time selected by his class to present a book to the master, and adds: "As he stepped forward at the close of a recitation, and delivered the short Latin presentation-address, I thought him to be a god." This fascination is hard to be explained. The great seriousness of Horner's character may in part account for it. He could not bear trifling on important subjects, and could not help frowning on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... and it has been a favorite with me ever since. W. K. Bull, who presided over so many municipal elections, and was a very well-read man, also took part, giving a reading on Australia, and ending up with a recitation. ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... in his Garret His First Books Florian's Romances Begins to Rhyme The Poetic Nature Barbers and Poetry Importance of the Barber Jasmin first Theatrical Entertainment Under the Tiles Talent for Recitation Jasmin begins Business ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... any court in those days was complete without this diversion of recitation, when the nation's heroes, or some passage from its greater classics, furnished the theme; or when some improvisator wove a tissue of myth and legend, embroidered with fact, which won its way through confiding ages as historic truth, till the time, growing sophisticated, laid it heroically ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... pipe from between his teeth, had straightened up. Her deep voice, the slight swinging of her body to the rhythm she had unconsciously given to her lines, the strange glow in her eyes ... Holliwell wondered why these things, this brief, sing-song recitation, had given a light thrill to the surface of his skin, had sent a tingling to his fingertips. He was the first person to wonder at that effect of Joan's cadenced music. "The valley of the shadow—" she had missed a familiar phrase and added ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... a dalmatic, and a cap resembling a biretta,—was recounting to a congregation, composed chiefly of women, old men, and children, the virtues of their deceased benefactor. Presently, the sermon came to an end, and the colloquial delivery of the discourse was changed for the monotone of a litany recitation: the people answering with ready response, and many of them employing the aid of their rosaries. The fragrance of incense filled the air; tapers and flowers adorned the altar, above which was the statue, not—as one entering by chance might almost have expected to see—of ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.

... orally; he must be led to talk. But this implies that he must have something to say, and be interested in saying it. Formal "language lessons," divorced from all the child's interests and activities, will not meet the purpose. Facility in speech grows out of enthusiasm in speaking. Every recitation is a lesson in English, and should be used for this purpose; nor should the aim be correctness only, but ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts

... make acquaintance with his natural tone and manner. Here at least is man's world, whose reality can never be undermined. He plies them with questions, indulges in literary criticism, and asks for a recitation. Suddenly he sees tears in the actors' eyes. He hurries them away, and when he ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... a trade in Copenhagen, if it was to come to that. He still stayed in the capital, and still lingered round the theatre, sometimes getting a lesson in recitation, sometimes one in dancing, and overjoyed if only as one of a crowd of masked people he could stand before the scenes. There never surely was so irrepressible a vanity combined with so sensitive a temperament; never so strong an impulse for distinction accompanied with such ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... Andrew Wood for the hero. The version of this ballad printed in most collections is that of Scott's Minstrelsy, Sir Patrick Spens being the spelling adopted.[1] Scott compounded his ballad of two manuscript copies and a few verses from recitation, but the result is of ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various

... the student will not do in one term nor in one year, but he will have found himself in the library, he will have acquired a bond to culture that will not break as he steps out of his last recitation, that will not yield when time and distance have relegated his college friendships, with his lost youth, to the Eden or the Avilion of memory. And if afterwards he comes, with Emerson, to find the chief value of his college training in the ability it has given him to recognize its ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... eloquent political speech of the Hon. Samuel Alschuler and a stirring recitation by one of the actors, I was ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... talk of Alpheus and Arethusa," murmured an idling sophomore, who had found his way thither during recitation hours, "but the Croton in passing over an arm of the sea at Spuyten Duyvil, and bursting to sight again in this truncated pyramid, beats it all hollow. By George, too, the bay yonder looks as blue as ever the AEgean Sea to Byron's eye, gazing from the Acropolis! But ...
— The Man In The Reservoir • Charles Fenno Hoffman

... cry from the sick room; they go back, and Constance enters at once upon her new, strange task. Her heart heavy; her hand firm; her ears smitten by the babbling recitation of that awful secret; and her lips sealed with the seal of ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch



Words linked to "Recitation" :   practice, declamation, course, speechmaking, public speaking, oral presentation, recite, course of study, review, military drill, fire drill, class, matter, dry run, shadowboxing, speaking, grooming, training, course of instruction, session, brushup, manual of arms, manual, preparation, rehearsal, scrimmage, target practice



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