Pen of Iron : : American Prose and the King James Bible / / Robert Alter.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Alter, Robert,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2010]; ©2010
• Year of Publication: 2010
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (208 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; Prelude. America as a Scriptural Culture --; Chapter 1. Style in America and the King James Version --; Chapter 2. Moby- Dick Polyphony --; Chapter 3. Absalom, Absalom! Lexicon --; Chapter 4. Seize the Day American Amalgam --; Chapter 5. The World through Parataxis --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781400834358; 9783110442502
• DOI: 10.1515/9781400834358
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Robert Alter.

The simple yet grand language of the King James Bible has pervaded American culture from the beginning--and its powerful eloquence continues to be felt even today. In this book, acclaimed biblical translator and literary critic Robert Alter traces some of the fascinating ways that American novelists--from Melville, Hemingway, and Faulkner to Bellow, Marilynne Robinson, and Cormac McCarthy--have drawn on the rich stylistic resources of the canonical English Bible to fashion their own strongly resonant styles and distinctive visions of reality. Showing the radically different manners in which the words, idioms, syntax, and cadences of this Bible are woven into Moby-Dick, Absalom, Absalom!, The Sun Also Rises, Seize the Day, Gilead, and The Road, Alter reveals the wide variety of stylistic and imaginative possibilities that American novelists have found in Scripture. At the same time, Alter demonstrates the importance of looking closely at the style of literary works, making the case that style is not merely an aesthetic phenomenon but is the very medium through which writers conceive their worlds.