Words and The Word: Language, Poetics and Biblical Interpretation

Description

Prickett charts the schism, opened at the end of the oighteenth century, between biblical hermeneutics and literary criticism. This split has profound implications for both contemporary biblical translation and literary theory. The author investigates the critical commonplace that religious language is essentially poetic, and traces the development of that view in the writings of Dennis and Vico, Herder and Eichhorn, Ccoleridge and Arnold, Wordsworth and Hopkins, and Austin Farrer and Paul Ricouer. This concept continues to provide a terminology for discussing narrative that can no longer be interpreted literally or allegorically, but has also led some critics to devise inadequate translation theories and conceptions of metaphor.

'This is a magnificent book, full of subtle yet important arguements. Biblical scholars will need to come to terms with it, those who praise the Good News Bible for its 'clarity and simplicity' will be given food for thought. It is in short, a major contribution from a respected literary scholar on a crucial area of theological debate.' Michael Townsend, The Expository Times 'Prickett's study is an attempt to 'tease out certain problems' related to the long-developing separation between biblical and literary studies ... Readers will need to give every sentence their full attention. The reward, however, will be a heightened understanding not only of where our present critical crisis comes from but of what it actually is and what we must do to make any advance toward solving it.' G. B. Tennyson, Victorian Studies 'A distinguished and original book.' Owen Barfield, Nineteenth-Century Literature 'These pages are alive with interest ... rush out and buy this book immediately.' New Blackfriars