Unparalleled Poetry

Abstract

Abstract This book disentangles biblical Hebrew poetry from more than 250 years of scholarship dominated by metrical assumptions and the problematic notion of parallelism; the cognitive approach offered in replacement provides an account of the free-rhythm versification system of biblical poetry that is oriented toward how poetic structure can be heard and perceived. Drawing from the cognitive poetics work of Reuven Tsur, the book argues that the poetic line emerges in the cognitive experience of the listener/reader. The “lines” of biblical poetry are reconceptualized not as linear and parallel but as diverse segments that make up shapes or figures, the line-groupings of biblical poetry. The line emerges in biblical poetry in the part-whole mental organization of the line in relation to the line-grouping, which is accounted for through the Gestalt principles of perception. The Gestalt principles provide the structural potential of biblical Hebrew poetry, which is distinct from any particular aspect of language but potentially draws from any aspect of it. Additionally, the Gestalt principles account for how the lines and line-groupings come together to form larger integrated wholes of stanzas and poems. This cognitive approach to biblical poetry accounts for the wide diversity of lines and poems in the Hebrew Bible and illuminates both the structures of biblical poetry and the artistry of potential effects. It also addresses the issues of rhythm and the so-called qinah meter, line lengths and the immediate memory constraint, and the relationship between prose and poetry in the Hebrew Bible.