THE BIBLE INFLUENCES WRITING
Real life stories often foist fictional fabrics upon their frameworks as colorful frocks. Apparently their authors are too frightened by the ugly enormity of some segments of reality to expose such views of unabashed truth to literary scrutiny.
This inference I have drawn most recently from Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the acclaimed author of the iconic civil war, "novel," UNCLE TOM'S CABIN (1852). Her book is believed to have contributed to the Civil War .I had thought it to be strange to have read of like incidents and occurrences, to hers, to be featured in other works, of various genres: slave narratives, autobiographies, and Underground Railroad records, especially the flight of Eliza over a frozen river.
Now, I know why that there was this overlap. Her "novel" is not really a novel. Rather, it is actually quite "factual," despite its fillistered fig-leaf cover-genre, being nearer in form and content to a figure of speech, a trope, known as "apostrophe." She explains how, below, in some detail. So effective was her work as abolitionist apostrophe that it became an instant best-seller in America and in England. much so that it became "spiritual" to many and a threat to others.A free black Methodist minister named Green was given a 10-year jail sentence in antebellum Maryland, for sedition, after a copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was found in his house. He was finally freed by the Civil War, himself!
Mrs. Stowe writes:
"At different times, doubt has been expressed whether the representations of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' are fair representations of slavery as it at present exists. This work , more, perhaps than any other work of fiction that ever was written, has been a collection and arrangement of real incidents,--of actions really performed, of words and expressions really uttered,--grouped together with reference to a general result, in the same manner that the mosaic artist groups his fragments of various stones into one general picture . He is a mosaic of gems,--this is a mosaic of facts.
"Artistically considered, it might not be best to point out in which quarry and from which region each fragment of the mosaic picture had its origins; and it is equally unartistic to disentangle the glittering web of fiction, and show out of what real warp and woof it is woven, and with what real coloring dyed . But the book had a purpose transcending the artistic one, and accordingly encounters, at the hands of the public, demands not usually made on fictitious works. It is 'treated' as a reality,--sifted, tried and tested, as a reality ; and therefore as a reality it may be proper that it should be defended.
"The author agrees that the book is a very inadequate representation of slavery; and it is so necessarily for this reason,--that slavery in some of its workings, is too dreadful for the purposes of art. A work which should represent strictly as it is would be a work which could not be read. And all works which ever mean to give pleasure must draw a veil somewhere, or they cannot succeed."
Part I, Chap.I, p.5, A KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; FACTS AND DOCUMENTS UPON WHICH THE STORY IS FOUNDED by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1853)
As with real life stories, even those cloaked as fiction as "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Bible verses, in form and substance , can under-gird the most vibrant prose. "I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps" goes Julia Ward's the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." It is also in the writings of Thomas Paine:
"'Make but the case of others your own, and your own theirs, and you will then have a clear idea of the whole." p.225, "The Crisis VIII," THOMAS PAINE COLLECTED WRITINGS (1955). This echoes , "They sat where they sat for seven days saying nothing." Ezekiel 3:15. It also echoes a passage in Job.
Abraham Lincoln's, Frederick Douglass', William Wells Brown's and even the towering river pilot, Mark Twain's frequently-misunderstood apostrophic writings effect Biblical nuances, references and rhythms, often quotations in them.
Monday, July 17, 2017
BIBLE INFLUENCES GOOD WRITING
THE BIBLE INFLUENCES WRITING
Real life stories often foist fictional fabrics upon their frameworks as colorful frocks. Apparently their authors are too frightened by the ugly enormity of some segments of reality to expose such views of unabashed truth to literary scrutiny.
This inference I have drawn most recently from Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the acclaimed author of the iconic civil war, "novel," UNCLE TOM'S CABIN (1852). Her book is believed to have contributed to the Civil War .I had thought it to be strange to have read of like incidents and occurrences, to hers, to be featured in other works, of various genres: slave narratives, autobiographies, and Underground Railroad records, especially the flight of Eliza over a frozen river.
Now, I know why that there was this overlap. Her "novel" is not really a novel. Rather, it is actually quite "factual," despite its fillistered fig-leaf cover-genre, being nearer in form and content to a figure of speech, a trope, known as "apostrophe." She explains how, below, in some detail. So effective was her work as abolitionist apostrophe that it became an instant best-seller in America and in England. much so that it became "spiritual" to many and a threat to others.A free black Methodist minister named Green was given a 10-year jail sentence in antebellum Maryland, for sedition, after a copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was found in his house. He was finally freed by the Civil War, himself!
Mrs. Stowe writes:
"At different times, doubt has been expressed whether the representations of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' are fair representations of slavery as it at present exists. This work , more, perhaps than any other work of fiction that ever was written, has been a collection and arrangement of real incidents,--of actions really performed, of words and expressions really uttered,--grouped together with reference to a general result, in the same manner that the mosaic artist groups his fragments of various stones into one general picture . He is a mosaic of gems,--this is a mosaic of facts.
"Artistically considered, it might not be best to point out in which quarry and from which region each fragment of the mosaic picture had its origins; and it is equally unartistic to disentangle the glittering web of fiction, and show out of what real warp and woof it is woven, and with what real coloring dyed . But the book had a purpose transcending the artistic one, and accordingly encounters, at the hands of the public, demands not usually made on fictitious works. It is 'treated' as a reality,--sifted, tried and tested, as a reality ; and therefore as a reality it may be proper that it should be defended.
"The author agrees that the book is a very inadequate representation of slavery; and it is so necessarily for this reason,--that slavery in some of its workings, is too dreadful for the purposes of art. A work which should represent strictly as it is would be a work which could not be read. And all works which ever mean to give pleasure must draw a veil somewhere, or they cannot succeed."
Part I, Chap.I, p.5, A KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; FACTS AND DOCUMENTS UPON WHICH THE STORY IS FOUNDED by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1853)
As with real life stories, even those cloaked as fiction as "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Bible verses, in form and substance , can under-gird the most vibrant prose. "I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps" goes Julia Ward's the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." It is also in the writings of Thomas Paine:
"'Make but the case of others your own, and your own theirs, and you will then have a clear idea of the whole." p.225, "The Crisis VIII," THOMAS PAINE COLLECTED WRITINGS (1955). This echoes , "They sat where they sat for seven days saying nothing." Ezekiel 3:15. It also echoes a passage in Job.
Abraham Lincoln's, Frederick Douglass', William Wells Brown's and even the towering river pilot, Mark Twain's frequently-misunderstood apostrophic writings effect Biblical nuances, references and rhythms, often quotations in them.
