Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-94d59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T22:37:26.586Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Language within language

The King James steamroller

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2014

Stephen Prickett
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow and University of Kent
Hannibal Hamlin
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Norman W. Jones
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Get access

Summary

The language of the King James Bible (KJB) has not been lacking in admirers. From T. B. Macaulay (1828) onwards, praise has come thick and fast. For Richard Chenevix Trench, writing thirty years later,

all is clear, correct, lucid, happy, awaking continual admiration by the rhythmic beauty of the periods, the instinctive art with which the style rises and falls with the subject, the skilful surmounting of the difficulties the most real, the diligence with which almost all which was happiest in preceding translations has been retained and embodied in the present; the constant solemnity and seriousness which, by some nameless skill, is made to rest on all.

For George Saintsbury it (with Shakespeare) represents “the perfection of English, the complete expression of the literary capacities of the language” (1887). For others it is “a wonder before which I can only stand humble and aghast” (Arthur Quiller-Couch, 1916); “probably the most beautiful piece of writing in all the literature of the world” (H. L. Mencken, 1930), its style is “characterized not merely by homely vigour and pithiness of phrase, but also by a singular nobility of diction and by a rhythmic quality … unrivalled in its beauty (John Livingstone Lowes, 1936); in short, it is “a miracle and a landmark” (H. Wheeler Robinson, 1940).

Type
Chapter
Information
The King James Bible after Four Hundred Years
Literary, Linguistic, and Cultural Influences
, pp. 27 - 44
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×