Stop, Breathe, Pause, Suspend, Take Time, Rest, Divide, Separate…. Such injunctions dominate eighteenth-century (and nineteenth-century) discourse on the Art of Punctuation. As we established in Part 1, the manner in which phrases are formed and differentiated (our “complex and lively picture of pointing theory”) encompasses a broad array of subjects: syllabic feet, metrical stress, accent, emphasis, dynamics, inflection, as well as considerations of gesture, affect, compositional type and style, etc. But a quick glance through the chart in appendix B reveals punctuation's defining role as the delineation of phrase structure through pauses, or musically speaking, rests. The three chapters here in Part 2 explore the interwoven parameters by which we can begin to grasp this intricate Art of Interpreting Rests: the methods of notating the pauses of punctuation, differentiating these symbols from those of articulation, and always taking into consideration the prevailing character or affect of the expression at hand.

As performers, students, or teachers, we have all very likely said, or had said to us, something along the lines of “be faithful to the score,” or “play only what is written.” We observed, with regard to the punctuation of the Pledge of Allegiance, that the South Bay Toastmasters similarly advised their members to “speak it as it is written.” But as we have also learned, such a request is not as straightforward as it might seem. We must remind ourselves that punctuation is an essentially visual phenomenon with a history inseparable from that of written language. Writing served initially as a visual record of the spoken word, but gradually grew from the sixth century onwards to convey information directly to the mind's eye (silent reading for example), bypassing any oral (or aural) expression. As the practice of disseminating information solely through a written medium developed, notational tools like punctuation, which could promote comprehension, became increasingly important.