Note 154 — INTRODUCTION. (continued 2)

The form of the book has also been a matter of great dispute. From its earliest age it has been regarded as one continued poem in a dramatic form. Since the time of Richard Simon, however, who pronounced this book, “summam confusionem, in quo vix ac ne vix quidem personas discernere queas,”154 it has been split by many into fragments, and in turn been regarded as consisting of a number of eclogues, or armorets, as an epithalamium, or nuptial song, and as a regular drama. Having traced the unity of the poem in Section III., we need not again show the unsoundness of the fragmentary theory, which originated from a misunderstanding of the design of the book. It seems to approach nearest in form to a drama. Yet we cannot think, with Ewald and others, that it is a regular drama. The genius, character, and manners of the Shemitic nations, their deficiency in plastic art, and their aversion to females appearing on a public stage, seem to militate against it.