I
My task to-day, Gentlemen, is mainly practical: to choose a
particular book of Scripture and show (if I can) not only that it
deserves to be enjoyed, in its English rendering, as a literary
masterpiece, because it abides in that dress, an indisputable
classic for us, as surely as if it had first been composed in
English; but that it can, for purposes of study, serve the
purpose of any true literary school of English as readily, and as
usefully, as the Prologue to "The Canterbury Tales" or "Hamlet"
or "Paradise Lost." I shall choose "The Book of Job" for several
reasons, presently to be given; but beg you to understand that,
while taking it for a striking illustration, I use it but to
illustrate; that what may be done with "Job" may, in degree, be
done with "Ruth," with "Esther," with the "Psalms," "The Song of
Songs," "Ecclesiastes;" with Isaiah of Jerusalem, Ezekiel, sundry
of the prophets; even with St Luke's Gospel or St Paul's letters
to the Churches.
My first reason, then, for choosing "Job" has already been given.
It is the most striking illustration to be found. Many of the
Psalms touch perfection as lyrical strains: of the ecstacy of
passion in love I suppose "The Song of Songs" to express the very
last word. There are chapters of Isaiah that snatch the very soul
and ravish it aloft. In no literature known to me are short
stories told with such sweet austerity of art as in the Gospel
parables--I can even imagine a high and learned artist in words,
after rejecting them as divine on many grounds, surrendering in
the end to their divine artistry. But for high seriousness
combined with architectonic treatment on a great scale; for
sublimity of conception, working malleably within a structure
which is simple, severe, complete, having a beginning, a middle
and an end; for diction never less than adequate, constantly
right and therefore not seldom superb, as theme, thought and
utterance soar up together and make one miracle, I can name no
single book of the Bible to compare with "Job."
My second reason is that the poem, being brief, compendious and
quite simple in structure, can be handily expounded; "Job" is
what Milton precisely called it, 'a brief model.' And my third
reason (which I must not hide) is that two writers whom I
mentioned in my last lecture Lord Latymer and Professor R. G.
Moulton--have already done this for me. A man who drives at
practice must use the tools other men have made, so he use them
with due acknowledgment; and this acknowledgment I pay by
referring you to Book II of Lord Latymer's "The Poet's Charter,'
and to the analysis of "Job" with which Professor Moulton
introduces his "Literary Study of the Bible.'