(Plot+Characters)*Voice^2=Literature?

[Lalwendë]

There are a number of things here that are decidely biblical, in terms of the passage's style: the brief sentences, some of which repeat each other; sentences that begin with "and" as the action accrues and grows; alliteration ("wizardry or war, welcoming"; "death. . .dawn"; "dark. . .dimly"); even biblical kinds of imagery (a crowing cock, blowing horns, "shadows of death"). The ultimate effect of this is to make this moment evocative of the Bible without maknig a direct one-to-one reference: there is no story from the Bible that I can think of which mirrors the coming of the Rohirrim; but the passage sure sounds biblical!

This has left me feeling somewhat perturbed. When I write a speech I use brief sentences, sentences beginning with 'and', alliteration, repetition. Have I been taught to write words which are intended to sound 'biblical'? And then there is the mysterious 'rule of three' - Horns, Horns, Horns. It's not so far from Education, Education, Education is it? (Which I hasten to add is nowt to do with me).

I too don't like misused apostrophes and mock loudly when I see one in a Greengrocer's window, but then I remember the errors I make daily due to my non-existent typing skills and I check myself.

[Bêthberry]

To my great regret, I have been able to follow this interesting thread only by reading for much of this week and even now must reply shortly. Please over look any curtness that arises from brevity.

A great deal of old rhetorical style in English derived from Greek theories of good speaking, or oratory: Vir bonus dicendi peritus est. "The good man is skilled in speech", Quintilian.

Many of our habits still reflect some of those values, even without the influence of school teachers. Churchill used the 'rule of three' in many of his stirring wartime speeches. John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address is a model of Greek rhetoric. The first chapter of one of Hemingway's novels can be thoroughly analysed for its structure using the old pattern for organising a speech.--Yes, Hemingway, father of allegedly of pity modern style in American novels.

The Renaissance come about in part with the rediscovery of Greek. And so the men who translated the King James Bible were also men highly schooled in the latest ideas about language. The melifluous style and tone of the King James derives from this common sense among the translators of what was beautiful lanaguage. (And is why some modern translations, which are techically correct as translations, seem to lack "poetry.")

Language, as Rimbaud has said, is all about pattern and structure. It is the very repetition of patterns--and then their variations and deviations--that makes meaning, as Fordim has argued here. I think it is very perceptive of Fordim to make this argument about the archaic language, for usually it is related to the heroic narratives Tolkien harkened to.

But, alas, I must fly. I hope no one calls me a fool for it!

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

The Renaissance come about in part with the rediscovery of Greek. And so the men who translated the King James Bible were also men highly schooled in the latest ideas about language.

To fly completely off topic here, this interests me in that my favourite translation of the New Testament is Tyndale's, & two statements in David Daniell's introduction to my copy seem relevant:

(Tyndale's translation) was the first of that majestic sequence od eleven new translations of the Bible into English which ended in 1611 with the publication of King James's 'Authorised Version'. That famous 'translation' was in fact almost entirely, in the New Testament, made from Tyndale's words, which would have been recognised as such by readers.

&

Tyndale chose a register of slightly heightened common English speech, with a simple Saxon syntax of subject-verb-object, avoiding grammatical dependencies, & a Saxon vocabulary.

So, while the translators of the King James Bible were, as [b]Bb[/i] says ' highly schooled in the latest ideas about language', they were effectively lifting their 'translation' from Tyndale's, which deliberately used the 'common speech' of the ordinary folk who weren't 'highly schooled'.

So, what were these 'latest ideas' about language & how important were they?