Recitation Handclasp

• Main
• All Subpages
• Create New

Recitation posture

When someone is reciting something from memory (or singing something from memory, as in a recital), they quite often assume a certain posture: Standing erect, they clasp the fingers of each hand together. See photo for example. (Photo comes from a comic parody of the Major-General Song.) Apparently there is sound reason for this posture; pulling on one's arms thusly expands the chest cavity, allowing for more lung capacity and thus volume. Perhaps a Discredited Trope, as it was probably done a lot more in the 19th century than today.

Examples of Recitation Handclasp include:

Film

• This is done in Miss Congeniality.
• The children assume this posture during their recital at the festival in The Sound of Music.
• Done without irony as a beginning and ending pose for the poetic recitations in the movie of Anne of Green Gables.
• One of several positions Danny Kaye takes while singing in The Court Jester.
• Alice did this when she was reciting poetry in the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland.
• The kinnigihts of Camelot assume this posture (when they're not dancing on the tables) during the "Knights of the Round Table" song in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
• The womens' chorus assume this pose during the Major-General Song in the 1983 film version of The Pirates of Penzance (and in the Delacorte theatrical version from which it sprang).

Live Action TV

• The cast of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip did it when singing their version of Major General.
• In a segment of Greatest Hits on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Wayne and Josie sing a song about chiropractors in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, assuming this position as a parody of those types of songs. And it's awesome.
  • Wayne Brady also takes this pose in one episode during a game of "Theater and Film Styles", when Drew Carey calls out, "Gilbert and Sullivan."

Web Original

• Done in A Very Model Halloween, as mentioned above. Doubtless a parody on the above-mentioned womens' chorus pose from the film.

Western Animation

• Giovanni Jones (the fat opera singer) assumes this posture in the Looney Tunes short, "Long Haired Hare."
• In the Family Guy episode, "Model Misbehavior", Peter (all four of him) takes this position when reminiscing about the time he was a member of the singing group, "the Four Peters" (basically humming "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" by Mozart).