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My wife and I read to each other in the evenings, and recently we've been going through a volume of Rudyard Kipling's short stories. I have been struck by the extent to which Kipling's style was influenced by the Authorized Version (or King James Version, if you prefer) of the Bible.
For example, in the story "Three and--an Extra," we find the following statement concerning Mrs. Hauksbee, a lady given to dallying with married men: "You had only to mention her name at afternoon teas for every woman in the room to rise up and call her not blessed." This, of course, is a clever twist on the description of the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31:28 : "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her." Kipling knew the Scripture and was confident his readers did as well.
The ironic part about all this is that Kipling was no Christian. In fact, a thinly-veiled hostility to the Church is evident in much of his writing. Yet he still worked within the idiom of the Bible. The same could be said of many other 18th- and 19th-century English and American authors.
Isn't it sad that these unbelievers' writing styles were more influenced by the Bible than the style of professing Christian writers today?
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2 comments:
Hi,
I've just read your post. If you want to know more about Kipling and the Bible, here is an article at the end of an excellent book edited by Frederic Slaby and Elise Ouvard:
http://www.unicaen.fr/mrsh/lisa/publications/017/table017gb.pdf
Best,
Art
Yes, I just wanted to confirm that the book by Frederic Slaby and Elise Ouvrad is a good book and the article about Kipling and the Bible is very interesting. Too bad this book published on the Internet is in two languages (English and French), though...
Regards,
Claire
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