The words and wisdom of Constantin Stanislavski:
It is better not to read verse at all, than read it in the way which is considered lawful, requisite, and patented in the sense of poetry and musicalness. Rhythm does not consist in stressing iambs and anapaests. I cannot bear the marchlike beating out of rhythm. I want to sleep when I hear the reading of verse in a solemnly monotonous voice with chromatic tones crawling up. I cannot bear vocal leaps to the terza or quinta with a fall at the end of each line to a secunda. There is nothing more vulgar than a made, sweetish, quasi-poetical voice in lyric poems, which rises and falls like waves during a dead calm. (MLIA)
