Dialogue as a Literary Form

Extract

This device, now so nearly obsolete, has in the past been the vehicle of sound knowledge and impassioned thought; but a writer of to-day deliberately hampers his message in employing it. Is it that the construction is discredited through the heavy-handed use of it in pedagogy? It may well be that the union of the pupil’s apt observations and the instructor’s bland copiousness so impregnated the method with tedium that few dare again adventure it.

In tracing the history of Dialogue, we find two well-marked streams of development; one in the literature of knowledge and the other in the literature of emotion. It would not be reasonable to recognise its origin in that primitive stage when continuous narrative consisted only in the necessary descriptions, and the story was delivered from the mouths of the characters. We are often reminded of this in the vigorous telling of the Old Testament stories. In the book of Job is the most ancient form of the Dialogue easily accessible to us. There is a prose introduction and a prose conclusion, but the body of the poem is a series of dialogues. Undoubtedly the philosopher-poet utilised an existing epic narrative as the core of his discussion of the problem of evil; and in the dispute between the hero and the subordinate characters is developed a theory of life and conduct. With eastern subtlety, the final conclusion is suggested rather than explicitly stated.