- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: T.& T.Clark Ltd (1 Jan 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0567291766
- ISBN-13: 978-0567291769
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.6 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,203,086 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Art of Biblical Poetry
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Robert Alter...'explores each of the main poetic genres of the Bible and brings to light all the underlying poetic principles. He enables the general reader and specialist alike to see these ancient poems afresh, and to appreciate the relation between poetic vehicle and religious vision. With great skill and clarity he shows how the poetry of the Bible may be read with more awareness and in closer consonance with the original intended meaning.'
From the rear cover of the book.
From the rear cover of the book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
35 of 36 people found the following review helpful
A literary approach to reading Biblical poetry
8 Dec 2004
Format:Paperback
Alter continues here what he started in ' The Art of Biblical Narrative' and applies the techniques of literary criticism to the Biblical text. He does not discard Lowth's discovery of parallelism as the key technique of Biblical poetry but rather sharpens and intensifies the meaning of this concept. He shows the way different kind of parallelism operate in the text. He illustrates how intensification of meaning comes through repetition and variation. He closely reads some of the great Biblical poetry.
This is a wonderful work for all those who love the Bible and all those who love Poetry.
This is a wonderful work for all those who love the Bible and all those who love Poetry.
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Alter is a brilliant guide to the Bible
28 Jan 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This companion volume to "The Art of Biblican Narrative" is equally illuminating although the subject matter is very different. Still, Alter is to my mind the deepest and most perceptive literary analyst I have ever read. His writing is not easy and I sometimes have to look up words he uses -- but he reads so closely and with such sympathy and sensitivity that his insights are often simply revelatory.
Here he examines Biblical poetry with close readings from selections of the prophets, the Song of Songs, Pslams, Proverbs and most of all Job. Some of the texts he examines were faily familiar to me. Others not so much.
Biblical poetry is based on a technique called "parallelism" rather than on rhyme or meter. Parallelism splits each line into two parts and the second somehow reflects upon, amplifies, intensifies or illuminates the first. The form is quite stiff and unyielding at first sight -- yet Alter shows how in the hands of the anonymous authors whose names are mostly lost to us, it can become an instrument of tremendous power.
Anyone interested in the Bible should read this.
Here he examines Biblical poetry with close readings from selections of the prophets, the Song of Songs, Pslams, Proverbs and most of all Job. Some of the texts he examines were faily familiar to me. Others not so much.
Biblical poetry is based on a technique called "parallelism" rather than on rhyme or meter. Parallelism splits each line into two parts and the second somehow reflects upon, amplifies, intensifies or illuminates the first. The form is quite stiff and unyielding at first sight -- yet Alter shows how in the hands of the anonymous authors whose names are mostly lost to us, it can become an instrument of tremendous power.
Anyone interested in the Bible should read this.
46 of 53 people found the following review helpful
This book should never be out of print
17 July 1998
Format:Paperback
This is one of the books that I was supposed to read for a class but didn't get around to it until now. I am halfway through this book and it is one of the most readable academic books that I've read. It is no wonder that Robert Alter has set and will set the standards by which Biblical litery criticism is judged.
The Bible comes alive under his translations and his insights into the text make this old book new and exciting.
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