In the Eyes of the Beholder: Unmarked Attributed Quotations in Job

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) Quotations, in the broadest sense, pervade every utterance, for all texts are compelled to draw on previous vocabulary, expressions, images, and ideas. As Julia Kristeva puts it, text is constructed as mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another.1 In more conventional sense, quotation may refer to words that are intended to be recognized as originating from another source but are reused as the words of the speaker. The words uttered, however, are meant to be heard as the voice of the primary speaker, even though the voice of the precedent text is also simultaneously invoked. This phenomenon is what Mikhail Bakhtin calls double voicing.2 The current voice may have different types of relationship to the precedent voice, ranging from absolute alignment to total opposition. In her intriguing monograph on Job, Carol A. Newsom argues that both Job and his friends at times quote traditional sayings in order to enhance their own arguments. According to her, both the present speaker's voice and that of the tradition are intended to be simultaneously recognized by the audience. Whereas the friends often cite authoritative tradition in agreement and support, Job at times alludes to the hymnic tradition in order to parody them.3 In biblical studies, this type of quotation is sometimes discussed under the rubric of innerbiblical exegesis, intertextuality, allusion, or echo.4 For the sake of clarity, in what follows, I will use the term allusion when referring to this type of quotation. Another distinct type, called attributed quotation, consists of words that are intended to be taken as belonging to subject other than the primary speaker, regardless of their actual source, and only repeated by the latter. This is what Bakhtin calls or represented discourse.5Whether the quotation expresses the sentiment of the precedent voice truthfully is not matter in question. Most important is the distance that the primary speaker sets in relation to that voice. In Bakhtin's words, the primary speaker's intention does not penetrate inside the objectified discourse.6 In this type of quotation, the voice may change significantly, even in total opposition to that of the primary speaker, especially in disputation. The correct identification of an attributed quotation is thus crucial to its interpretation. An attributed quotation can be marked by verbum dicendi, an explicit verb of speaking or thinking, such as ... This type of explicitly marked attributed quotation appears frequently in many portions of the book of Job, such as the dialogue between Job and his three friends (11:4; 19:28; 20:7b; 21:14-15, 28; 22:13-14, 17; 24:15b), the so-called wisdom poem (28:14, 22, 28), Job's later testimony (31:31), and the speeches of Elihu (32:13; 33:9-11, 24, 27-28; 34:5-6, 9, 18, 31-32, 35-37; 35:2-3, 10-11; 36:23b; 37:6a). In addition to verbum dicendi, an attributed quotation can sometimes be signaled by virtual markings. The main indices for marking quoted discourse are suggested by Michael V. Fox as follows: (a) There is another subject besides the primary speaker present in the immediate vicinity of the quotation, . . . (b) There is virtual verbum dicendi-a verb or noun that implies speech. (c) The switch to the perspective of the quoted voice is signalled by change in grammatical number and person. The presence of this last sign is largely dependent on the content of the quotation and may unavoidably be lacking, but when present it is often the clearest of the three signals.7 Recently, Edward L. Greenstein has also suggested that the presence of (d) a deictic (pointing) pronoun that draws attention to the quoted is another indicator of quotation.8 Of course, not all attributed quotations necessarily contain all four of the virtual markers noted above. …