Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, no. 22, August 1859 | Page 7

Bible is not true to Nature, if it does not represent
the comical side of life, as well as Shakspeare does? We think the
comical parts of Shakspeare, his extreme comical parts, are rather an
exaggeration of individual qualities than a fair portraiture of the whole
species. There is no Falstaff in the Bible, yet the qualities of Falstaff
exist in the Bible and in Nature, but in combination, and this
combination modifies their aspect and effect.
There is laughter in the Bible, but it is not uttered to make you laugh.
There are also events recorded, which, at the time, may have produced
effects analogous to comedy. The approach of the Gibeonites to the
camp of Israel in their mock-beggarly costume might be mentioned.
Shimei's cursing David has always seemed to us to border on the
ludicrous.
But to leave these matters and return to the general thread of thought.
Dramas have been formed on the Bible. We hardly need name
"Paradise Lost," or "Samson Agonistes," or the "Cain" of Byron, the
"Hadad" of Hillhouse, or Mrs. More's "David and Goliah." "Pilgrim's
Progress" has a Scriptural basis.
Moreover, if we may trust the best critics, certain portions of the sacred
volume are conceived in a dramatic spirit, and are propounded to a
dramatic interpretation. These are the Book of Job, the Song of
Solomon, and, possibly, the Apocalypse of St. John. If we were
disposed to contend for this view, we need but mention such authorities

as Calmet, Carpzov, Bishops Warburton, Percy, Lowth, Bossuet.
The Book of Job has a prose prologue and epilogue, the intermediate
portions being poetic dialogue. The characters are discriminated and
well supported. It does not preserve the unities of Aristotle, which,
indeed, are found neither in the Bible nor in Nature,--which Shakspeare
neglects, and which are to be met with only in the crystalline
artificialness of the French stage. "It has no plot, not even of the
simplest kind," says Dr. Lowth. It has a plot,--not an external and
visible one, but an internal and spiritual one; its incidents are its
feelings, its progress is the successive conditions of mind, and it
terminates with the triumph of virtue. If it be not a record of actual
conversation, it is an embodiment of a most wonderful ideality. The
eternity of God, the grandeur of Nature, the profundity of the soul,
move in silent panorama before you. The great and agitating problems
of human existence are depicted with astonishing energy and precision,
and marvellous is the conduct of the piece to us who behold it as a
painting away back on the dark canvas of antiquity.
We said the Jews had no drama, no theatre, because they would not
introduce the Divinity upon the stage. Yet God appears speaking in the
Book of Job, not bodily, but ideally, and herein is all difference. This
drama addresses the imagination, not the eye. The Greeks brought their
divinities into sight, stood them on the stage,--or clothed a man with an
enormous mask, and raised him on a pedestal, giving him also
corresponding apparel, to represent their god. The Hebrew stage, if we
may share the ordinary indulgence of language in using that term, with
an awe and delicacy suitable to the dignity of the subject, permits the
Divinity to speak, but does not presume to employ his person; the
majesty of Infinitude utters itself, but no robe-maker undertakes to
dress it for the occasion. In the present instance, how exalted, how
inspiring, is the appearance of God! how free from offensive
diminution and costumal familiarity! "Then the Lord answered Job out
of the whirlwind, and said." Dim indeed is the representation, but very
distinct is the impression. The phenomenon conforms to the purity of
feeling, not to the grossness of sense. Devotion is kindled by the
sublime impalpableness; no applause is enforced by appropriate acting.
The Greeks, would have played the Book of Job,--the Jews were
contented to read it.

And here we might remark a distinction between dramatic reading and
dramatic seeing; and in support of our theory we can call to aid so good
an authority as Charles Lamb. "I cannot help being of opinion," says
this essayist, "that the plays of Shakspeare are less calculated for
performance on a stage than those of almost any other dramatist
whatever."
How are the love dialogues of Romeo and Juliet, by the inherent fault
of stage representation, sullied and turned from their very nature by
being exposed to a large assembly! How can the profound sorrows of
Hamlet be depicted by a gesticulating actor? So, to see Lear acted, to
see an old man tottering about the stage with a walking-stick, turned
out of doors by his daughters in a rainy night, has nothing in it but what
is painful