Understanding of biblical poetry is enhanced by the study of its structure. In this book Adele Berlin analyzes parallelism, a major feature of Hebrew poetry, from a linguistic perspective. This new edition of Berlin's study features an additional chapter, "The Range of Biblical Metaphors inSmikhut,"by late Russian linguist Lida Knorina. Berlin calls this addition "innovative and instructive to those who value the linguistic analysis of poetry." It is a fitting coda to Berlin's adept analysis.

Poetics, the "science" of literature, makes us aware of how texts achieve their meaning. Poetics aids interpretation. If we know how texts mean, we are in a better position to discover what a particular text means. This is a book which offers fundamental guidelines for the sensitive reading and understanding of biblical stories. - Back cover.

Three decades ago, renowned literary expert Robert Alter radically expanded the horizons of biblical scholarship by recasting the Bible as not only a human creation but a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In The Art of Biblical Poetry, his companion to the seminal The Art of Biblical Narrative, Alter takes his analysis beyond narrative craft to investigate the use of Hebrew poetry in the Bible. Updated with a new preface, myriad revisions, and passages from Alter's own critically acclaimed biblical translations, The Art of Biblical Poetry is an indispensable tool for understanding the Bible and its poetry.

Presents a modern translation of the books of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament, providing an annotation and commentary for each verse.

The story of how each age understood the nature biblical poetry, Kugel concludes, is a key to understanding the Bible's place in the history of Western thought.

In spite of debatable issues, such as metre, we now know enough about classical Hebrew poetry to be able to understand how it was composed. This large-scale manual, rich in detail, exegesis and bibliography, provides guidelines for the analysis and appreciation of Hebrew verse. Topics include oral poetry, metre, parallelism and forms of the strophe and stanza. Sound patterns and imagery are also discussed. A lengthy chapter sets out a whole range of other poetic devices and the book closes with a set of worked examples of Hebrew poetry. Throughout, other ancient Semitic verse has been used for comparison and the principles of modern literary criticism have been applied.