The idea of biblical poetry

"Is there poetry in the Bible? Does it have rhyme or meter? How did ancient Hebrew writers compose their works? James L. Kugel's provocative study provides surprising new answers to these age-old questions. Biblical "poetry" is not a concept native to the Bible itself, he proposes, and the idea that the Bible is divided into prose and verse is merely an approximation of the reality of biblical style. Arguing that the Bible presents a continuum of speech heightened in varying degrees by different means, Kugel sets out to describe Hebrew's high style on its own terms. He also offers a thorough history of the idea of biblical poetry, starting with Philo of Alexandria and Josephus in the first century C.E. and charting its development through the Church Fathers, medieval Jewish writers, the Christian Hebraists of the Renaissance, and on into modern times. The story of how each age understood the nature of biblical poetry, Kugel concludes, is a key to understanding the Bible's place in the history of Western thought."--Jacket.

First sentence: The songs and psalms of the Bible were not written in quantitative meters, as were the songs of the ancient Greeks, nor do they have regular rhyme or alliterative patterns, as do the songs of many other peoples.

Year

1981

Language

English

Publisher

Yale Univ Pr

Editions

1

Pages

350

ISBN

9780300031010

Data source: Wikidata