RELIGION AND MODERN SPEECH
Sir-It would appear from your recent article that much of the criticism of The Man Born to Be King arises out of the use of modern speech. It is perhaps reasonable to expect that people would find the dynamic modernity of the language of the plays startling, nurtured as we are to-day on a religious diet of archaic English, but that they | should freely condemn so progressive a step on the. part of a _ well-informed writer is truly pathetic. Further, it is no more feasible that the Jews spoke 17th century English than that they used our modern tongue, or even a German or French translation. When Jesus preached did He use an ‘obsolete Hebraic speech to exhort the Jews of His time? Would so great a revolutionary have considered it irreligious to use the current speech? The mere suggestions are ludicrous. The variants of English used in the plays are intended to represent to us the variants which would certainly have existed among a group of variously educated Hebrews during the Roman © occupation. Where cultured speech is demanded for High Priests or noblemen it is represented by cultured English voices, What is more natural than to represent a town dialect of Jerusalem | by Cockney in an Enclish version?
G. A.
McCRACKEN
(Hamilton).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 261, 23 June 1944, Page 3
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217RELIGION AND MODERN SPEECH New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 261, 23 June 1944, Page 3
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