In today’s Wall Street Journal Stephen Miller reviews Robert Alter’s new book, Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible (Princeton University Press).
Here are the first two paragraphs of the review:
Once upon a time critics spoke of the pleasure they derived from reading a work of literature. They talked of an author’s descriptive gifts or insight into human nature—even about a distinctive literary voice or prose style. But a generation ago many scholars, besotted by French theorists, concluded that this way of discussing literature was naïve, if not wrong. They argued that one should instead scrutinize novels—now called “texts”—for the self-subversive qualities of language itself or for hidden authorial bias.
Robert Alter would like us to return to the earlier view. These days, he says, teachers “look right through” literary style in their effort to ground texts “in one ideology or another.” But style is valuable in itself. It is not only a source of “deep pleasure”; it is, he says, “the vehicle of a particular vision of reality.” In “Pen of Iron,” Mr. Alter—best known for his translations and close readings of the Hebrew Bible—looks in particular at how the King James Bible has influenced the prose style and literary voice of several American writers.
