"Methodology: The interaction of rhetorical and stylistic analysis This study is based on a prior text-analysis and translation of the entire book of Jonah (Wendland 1996). The methodology involves a systematic investigation of such...
more"Methodology: The interaction of rhetorical and stylistic analysis
This study is based on a prior text-analysis and translation of the entire book of Jonah (Wendland 1996). The methodology involves a systematic investigation of such macro-structural properties as demarcation (an internal segmentation of the text), conjunction (textual cohesion and coherence), projection (the foregrounding or highlighting of focal information), progression (the development of syntagmatic sequences and paradigmatic sets), and inclusion (the hierarchical integration of all discourse constituents into a unified whole). The result provides one with an overview or exposition, depending on the degree of detail, of a given biblical text's larger organizational framework and, perhaps more importantly, its associated (albeit assumed) functional operation as a unique instance of theological and literary communication, whether in the original event or during subsequent oral and written rehearsals in different contextual settings.
In this chapter, I will focus on the form and function of what appear to be the two most prominent stylistic techniques in the Jonah text, namely, recursion and variation. These two are of course related by mutual complementation. Both similarity (recursion) and difference (variation) are necessary for the production of verbal meaning in general and poetic effect in particular. "Style" concerns the how (or manner/means) of transmitting the content (the what) of a certain message. It refers to the sum of all those literary and linguistic characteristics that serve either to distinguish one text (or related corpus) from another, or to relate one text to another. Two other important, and closely related, artistic devices in Jonah (as in other biblical Hebrew narrative works) involve the use of "quotation" (i.e., inter- as well as intra-textual citation) and "interrogation" (i.e., both real and rhetorical questions), but these will be treated under the more general categories of recursion and variation. The use of any given stylistic feature will normally not be textually distinctive in itself. But the total inventory and placement of such items (their selection and arrangement) as they interact with one another within a single composition and situational context will inevitably be text-specific in terms of both form and function.
Any consideration of functional significance will normally engage an analyst with the rhetorical dimension of discourse. A study of "rhetoric" investigates the why (or aim/intention) of a certain text in relation to both the primary as well as any secondary receptor group. Rhetoric (in the narrower sense as used here) is the art of argumentation. It takes up where stylistics (the art of composition) leaves off and examines the utilization of a specially shaped and organized ("styled") verbal composition for the purposes of receptor persuasion. How did the original Hebrew author (whoever that happened to be, a unified text being presupposed) endeavor to employ a considered selection of content coupled with a skillful manipulation of form in order to direct the thinking, mold the opinion, move the emotions, and motivate the will of his audience—in short, to adopt a divinely-shaped ideology and point of view? Following this discussion of function, I will focus upon the diverse operation of two prominent rhetorical techniques in Jonah, namely, irony and enigma. These effects are frequently (but not always) generated by, or we might say—embodied in, the pair of stylistic means mentioned above, recursion and variation.
The present chapter consists of several major sections. In sections 6.2-6.4, I will survey the major formal features which distinguish the text of Jonah, with special reference to recursion and variation, which are key characteristics of Hebrew narrative style. In section 6.5, I consider the wider functional dimension of this type of discourse—though it is impossible to completely separate form and function during any meaningful analysis. In 6.6 and 6.7, irony and enigma specifically are described and illustrated from the text of Jonah. The four poetic and rhetorical resources of recursion, variation, irony, and enigma are crucial components of the “artistic code” (Long 1994:35) in which the book was first written and hence they are also keys to its contemporary interpretation. In the course of this investigation I hope to demonstrate why the short narrative work of Jonah has often been characterized as a “masterpiece of rhetoric” (Brichto 1992:68)—an excellent example of artful, affective religious communication. The principal reason for paying such careful attention to artistic form has been well-stated by V. Philips Long (Ibid.,42):
An increased appreciation of the literary mechanisms of a text—how a story is told—often becomes the avenue of greater insight into the theological, religious and even historical significance of the text—what the story means. A brief overview of Jonah's main theme(s) or "message," validates in turn the book's classification as a "prophetic" discourse; that is, it manifests a similar generic (hortatory) purpose to other texts found in the corpus of the so-called "minor" prophets.
Finally, in section 6.8, I present some thoughts on the practical implications of this study, Jonah’s psalm of chapter two in particular, with reference to Bible translation—communicating the "word of the LORD" persuasively (i.e., rhetorically) to God's people today in an appropriate genre and an idiomatic style.
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