QUESTIONS OF LANGUAGE
revolution, with its dissemination of words through newsprint and
the radio, and industrial tiredness which demands the kind of re–
laxation the cinema provides, have helped to corrupt and deaden
awareness. That
is
to say that not only our language but also our
cultural and spiritual life is being deadened and destroyed. The new
dynamic life of society organized according to the tempo of machines
and opposed to contemplation has only affected our language in
the way in which it has affected everything else.
I do not believe, then, that a literary or aesthetic approach to
the problem of language can
be
satisfactory. It may only help to show
us why under present conditions the
metier
of the poet is a very
difficult one. It will not show us why the
metier
of the contemplative
or of the philosopher is perhaps more or equally or only just less
difficult. Or why the
metier
of the engineer or the practical scientist
or the dirt-track racer or the film star is particularly easy because of
the harmony of these
metiers
with the tempo of machinery.
The hardening of our classical language was presumably inev–
itable. And the chances of survival of more flexible language in
certain provinces of the Anglo-Saxon world and in certain dialects
are apparently slight, There does occur to mind one further inter,.
esting happening in the last civilization with regard to language
which has as yet no parallel in our civilization. In a sense, new
vigor, as well as an entirely different tone, was given to the Latin
language when it was declining into preciosity with the onrush of
the Christian revolution. Admittedly the Latin of Augustine was not
the Latin of Cicero. Augustine was using a language which was in
some way like ours. But the dynamic vigor of Christian belief in–
troduced something into Latin which it never had before: as can
be
seen if we can compare the language and sensibility of the Chris–
tians with what preceded them. The Christians followed St. Paul and
the Gospels and for them writing was merely a means for expressing
truth and passion unself-consciously. Very often the new language
was crude and harsh, but sometimes it was magnificent in its power–
judged purely aesthetically.
So
occasionally masterpieces even of poetry
appeared,. such as the
Vexilla Regis
or the
Dies !rae.
But what is there in our society comparable to the Christian
revolution either as regards depth or extent-as regards the change
of spirit this revolution involved? Is there any movement which chal-
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