CHAPTER III LITERARY FORM THE KEY TO LITERARY INTERPRETATION The preceding chapters have been occupied with technicalities of literary form. All the world is interested in literature; but the number is not small of those who take the position that what interests them is the matter and spirit of literature, while questions of literary form they would leave to dilettantes and experts. It thus becomes desirable to lay down as a fundamental principle in the study of literature that form is the key to interpretation. A clear grasp of the external form is essential for entering into the matter and spirit of all literature. The technicalities of epic, lyric, drama, and other literary forms, have the same bearing upon literary appreciation that the technicalities of grammar have upon the understanding of language. Of the two things literary form is the more important: a grammatical misconception would probably affect only a detail, whereas a misconception of its literary form might lead us astray as to a whole poem. It is clear that if a man was engaged in reading a drama, and -per impossibile-he supposed himself to be reading an essay, he would be plunged in confusion. If he were reading a satire, and had taken it for a serious argument, he would go grievously astray: this is said to have happened when Defoe wrote his Shortest Way with Dissenters, and was thanked by church dignitaries for his valuable contribution to ecclesiastical controversy. We have seen in the preceding chapter1 how readers of Browning, making the technical confusion between pure lyric and 'Above, page 59. dramatic lyric, have insisted upon understanding as sentiments of Browning what, by the poet's own definition, must be sentiments of "some imaginary person, not myself." But these may seem to be trifling or far-fetched instances of what is put forward as a universal principle. If the law of form as the key to interpretation does not immediately commend itself to the reader's mind, this is because, in modern books, care is taken to present to the eye literature in a form that is unmistakable, so that the principle operates upon the reader unconsciously, like the law of gravitation. We may recur to the analogy of grammar. Most of us, though we may be impeccable in our grammar, would nevertheless be greatly embarrassed if what we read were presented to us without any marks of punctuation, or wrongly punctuated. Punctuation is a device for making grammatical structure unmistakable to the eye: in the same way the technique of the printed page makes literary form and structure automatically self-evident. Let helps of this kind be withheld, and the reader would soon realize how close is the connection between form and interpretation. Now, there is an important region of literature in which this structural presentation of what is read is traditionally lacking. This is the literature we call the Bible. I am here entering upon a subject of the highest importance to literary study, yet one which until recent years seems to have been almost totally neglected. I refer to the morphological confusion in which Biblical literature has become involved during its transmission through the Middle Ages. The Bible, like any other great literature, is made up of epic poems, lyrics, dramas, and almost all varieties of literary form. Yet in the Bibles commonly accepted among us nothing of this kind appears: what these present to the eye is a uniformity of numbered chapters and verses, under which all distinction of literary form has disappeared. The cause of this extraordinary phenomenon is connected with the nature of ancient manuscripts. Until about the first or second century of the Christian era manuscripts were entirely destitute of literary form: a page of an ancient manuscript shows alphabetical letters covering the whole, without divisions into words, still less divisions into sentences with punctuation; there is no discrimination of verse and prose, still less discrimination between different kinds of verse; dramatic passages have no names of speakers or division of speeches. In manuscripts of this kind all forms of literature dramatic dialogue or straightforward narration-will look exactly alike. This much applies to all literature: the distinction of the Bible from the rest lies in this special fact. The other poetry of antiquity was in the hands of literary men, who-in spite of the manuscripts-were keenly sensitive to poetic form when the advance in the art of writing made it possible they gave to such poetry its appropriate outer form. But between ourselves and the authors of Old Testament literature there is interposed a long era of commentators: those in charge of the Bible preserved its words faithfully, but had no interest in its form. On the contrary, they looked upon the sacred Scripture as materials for commenting, and were ready to make long comments upon every clause. When the advance in the art of writing reached them, it was natural that the form they gave to this Bible was that of texts numbered for comment, and as numbered texts and chapters it has come down to us. From the literary point of view this means a double perversion of the original: the true forms have disappeared, and another form— of chapters and verses-has been imposed upon biblical literature for which there is no warrant. Let us take a passage of the Bible (Isa. 40:3-8) which in its full literary setting would appear as follows. Proclamation Early manuscripts of Euripides have recently been discovered which show separation of verse lines, though without separation of words, or names of speakers. Copyists were paid by the verse. has been heard from God of comfort for Jerusalem, and voices are carrying on the word of comfort across the desert to the holy land. A Voice of One Crying Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the LORD, Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. And every mountain and hill shall be made low: And the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, For the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. Cry! A Second Voice (in the distance) A Despairing Voice What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, And all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, The flower fadeth, Because the breath of the LORD bloweth upon it: Surely the people is grass! The Second Voice The grass withereth, The flower fadeth: But the word of our God shall stand for ever. Now, in an ancient manuscript (the language being changed to English) such a passage would present an appearance like this. THEVOICEOFHIMTHATCRIETHINTHEWILDE RNESSPREPAREYETHEWAYOFTHELORDMAK ESTRAIGHTINTHEDESERTAHIGHWAYFOROU RGODEVERYVALLEYSHALLBEEXALTEDAND The mediaeval commentators, and our translators who followed them, broke up the general mass of this into lengths-or 'texts' -arranged for convenience of commentary; accordingly the form this passage assumes in ordinary Bibles will be this: / Matt. 3:3 m Mal. 3: I n Ps. 68: 4 p Ch. 45:2 9 Or. a straight place c Job 14:2 I Pet. 1:24 4 Or a plain place e John 12:34 3. 'The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, "make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: Pand the crooked shall be made 'straight, and the rough places' plain: 5. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. 6. The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: 7. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the Spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. 8. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. The recovery from this mediaeval transformation of Biblical literature has been a slow process. The elementary distinction between prose and verse in Hebrew was not discovered until more than a century after King James's Bible was issued. In the Revised Version of our own time the step has been taken of separating what is obviously prose and what is obviously verse. But it has been left to the present generation to take up the problem of fully restoring to Holy Scripture its literary form. Thus the Modern Reader's Bible,' accepting for translation the Revised Version, has made the attempt-from internal evidence and considerations of comparative literature-to ascertain the correct literary form of every part of the Bible, and to present Published by Macmillan: see list of my works at the end of this volume. |