On Biblical Poetry

On Biblical Poetry takes a fresh look at the nature of biblical Hebrew poetry beyond its currently best-known feature, parallelism. F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp argues that biblical poetry is in most respects just like any other verse tradition, and therefore biblical poems should be read and interpreted like other poems, using the same critical tools and with the same kinds of guiding assumptions in place. He offers a series of programmatic essays on major facets of biblical verse, each aspiring to alter currently regnant conceptualizations in the field and to show that attention to aspects of prosody--rhythm, lineation, and the like--allied with close reading can yield interesting, valuable, and even pleasurable interpretations. What distinguishes the verse of the Bible, says Dobbs-Allsopp, is its historicity and cultural specificity, those peculiar encrustations and encumbrances that typify all human artifacts. Both the literary and the historical, then, are in view throughout.

The concluding essay elaborates a close reading of Psalm 133. This chapter enacts the final movement to the set of literary and historical arguments mounted throughout the volume--an example of the holistic staging which, Dobbs-Allsopp argues, is much needed in the field of Biblical Studies.

F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp is an Associate Professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Introduction - Biblical Poetry Beyond Parallelism
Chapter One - "Verse, Properly So Called": The Line in Biblical Poetry
Terminology
Manuscript Evidence for the Line
The "Verse Line" in Oral Poetry
The Line from the Other's Perspective
Internal Evidence for the Line
Summary
Chapter Two - The Free Rhythms of Biblical Hebrew Poetry
Through Whitman's Eyes
Biblical Hebrew Poetry is Not Metrical
The Shape of Poetic Rhythm
Orality, Song, and Music
The Free Rhythms of Biblical Poetry
Summary
Chapter Three - The Idea of Lyric Poetry in the Bible
The Hebrew Lyric
Summary
Lyric in extenso: Probing (Some) Possibilities in the Song
Beyond Lyric: Toward a Richer Understanding of (Other) Biblical Poems
Chapter Four - An Informing Orality: Biblical Poetic Style
Some Preliminary Points of Orientation
Prob(lematiz)ing the Question of Hebrew Narrative Poetry
Nonnarrative Oral Poetry, Or: Orality Poeticized Otherwise
Signs of (Nonnarrative) Orality in Biblical Poetry
Emergent Textuality
Conclusions
Chapter Five - The Way of Poetry in Psalm 133
I
II
III
IV
Closing
Notes
Bibliography
Index