Table Of ContentEntangled Voices
This page intentionally left blank
Entangled Voices
Genre and the Religious
Construction of the Self
FREDERICK J. RUF
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1997
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires
Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong
Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne
Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Toyko Toronto
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1997 by Frederick J. Ruf
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ruf, FrederickJ., 1950—
Entangled voices: genre and the religious construction of the self/
Frederick J. Ruf.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-510263-0
1. Religious literature, English—History and criticism—Theory, etc.
2. Donne, John, 1572-1631. Holy sonnets. 3. Wilson, Robert, 1928-
Einstein on the beach. 4. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Biographia literaria. 5. Levi, Primo. Sistema periodico.
6. Self in literature. 7. Literary form. I. Title.
PR145.R85 1997 820.9'382—dc20 96-41281
Versions of four of these chapters have previously been published:
Chapters 1 and 2, The Voices of Narrative, Lyric, and Drama and "Jogona's Great
Treasure": Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic Intelligibility, appeared in Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 62 (1994) under one title, The Consequences of Genre:
Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic Intelligibility.
Chapter 3, "Intoxicated with Intimacy": The Lyric Voice in John Donne's Holy Son-
nets, was published in Harvard Theological Review 86 (1993) under the title Lyric Auto-
biography: John Donne's Holy Sonnets. Copyright 1993 by the President and Fellows of
Harvard College. Reprinted by permission.
Chapter 6, "Harmonized Chaos": The Mixed Voice of Coleridge's Biographia Liter-
aria, appeared in Soundings 75 (1992) under the title Coleridge's Biographia Literaria:
Extravagantly Mixed Genres and the Construction of a "Harmonized Chaos."
All these articles have been modified for inclusion in this volume.
135798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Nelle Yarboro Ruf
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments
For six years, from 1988 until 1994, the topics in this book were a
continual source of conversations with my friends, family, colleagues,
and students, even with my children as we read bedtime stories. I doubt,
therefore, that I can acknowledge adequately all who helped these
thoughts move along. Gordon Kaufman, as always, was provocative
and seminal; every scholar should have the benefit of his conversation.
Of great value were Richard Niebuhr and William Graham, in whose
seminar twelve years ago these thoughts first glimmered. James Engell
sharpened my thinking and informed it with sources, especially for the
chapter on Coleridge. Colleagues at Georgetown University provided
just the intellectual atmosphere one hopes for in academia. In particular,
Theresa Sanders and Joe Murphy gave me the sort of lunch table and
office door stimulation that should have produced a far better book.
John Glavin, Jim Donahue, Francisca Bantly, Victoria Pedrick, Diane
Yeager, Charles Winquist, and Stanley Hauerwas provided helpful
stimulus or support. Stephen Webb read the manuscript with eyes that
saw subtleties I had never perceived. His suggestions gave the book
qualities that certainly strengthen it. I would like to acknowledge the
Landegger Fund for both summer and semester research leaves; Efrat
Tseelon's conference on Mask, Masquerade, and Carnival in Venice in
1994, which helped me develop the chapter on Robert Wilson; Ales-
sandra Farkas and Lewis Rosenbluth, who assisted my research on
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Wilson; the theater and film archives of the Lincoln Center library for its
videotape of Einstein on the Beach', and several of the anonymous
readers whose comments improved the chapters that were previously
published. Irene Ovadia came somewhat late to this study but enriched it
in ways that reach into every chapter. Any subtlety that my sense of
voices might have is due greatly to her, but that is really but a small part
of it. Finally, if the deconstructive critics are correct (and I believe they
are), we are constantly being written through, with dissemination's
flow. I hope that theory recognizes the primacy of family in the process.
Christine, Joanna, and Jesse did not just provide forebearance and sup-
port; they weren't only the creative medium. We all wrote the book.
Contents
Introduction: Hearing Voices 3
Chapter 1. The Voices of Narrative, Lyric, and Drama 11
The Three Characteristics of Narrative 15
Lyric 19
Drama 21
Chapter 2. " Jogona's Great Treasure": Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic
Intelligibility 25
Intelligibility: Comprehensiveness and Cohesion 29
Conclusions 35
Chapter 3. "Intoxicated with Intimacy": The Lyric Voice in John
Donne's Holy Sonnets 37
Unruly Autobiography 39
Donne's Holy Sonnets 41
Donne's Lyric Self 42
The Lyric Voice 48
