Book Review

This is the latest of the books I've read. It was written in the 50's by Owen Barfield. Somewhere I read that he was a member of "The Inklings", a group of men that included the well-know philologist/author J.R.R. Tolkien. Barfield, like Tolkien to an extent, is a believer that knowledge of people of the past can be derived from their language. The book History in English Words opens to us a sense of the mind of ancient people and also shows the reader the influences of events on the language we speak today.

I have to admit, here at the outset, that it took me a great length of time to read this book. It is one of those books that I have to be in the mood to read. Specifically, I have to be in the wordy, etymology mood to really delve into this book. But once I was in, I was truly fascinated by what I read.

History in English Words is not simply a book filled with random facts about words that most people don't care about. The book ends up being about the history of the consciousness of man, how he has evolved from a superstitious and sort of mythical point of view in which his destiny is determined by the occurrences of the universe or the acts of the gods. What has gradually become of man is that he now views himself and his world more objectively. We commonly think of ourselves as being the authors of our own destinies, whereas the ancients believed that they were being acted upon by the universe. Barfield explains that we can hardly relate to some of the thinking that went on in the ancient days because we have such a different language now. He argues that language is used to form thoughts; since our language is so different from, say, 1,000 years ago, we can scarcely now build the same thought structures that existed then.

This all seems somewhat of a stretch, and the book needs to be read to get the full effect of what I'm trying to paraphrase here. It was an interesting read, and I was able to take a lot from it. The book provides the knowledge to look at the world differently. It has helped me to think about the words I use, and it has showed me the real meaning in much of the English language.

It is not a very long book - about an inch in thickness. It should really be standard reading in high school or colleges. It's that valuable.

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