Unparalleled Poetry: A Cognitive Approach to the Free-Rhythm Verse of the Hebrew Bible

The study of biblical Hebrew poetry has been dominated by metrical assumptions and parallelism for over 250 years. Unparalleled Poetry argues that a new paradigm is needed, one that is disentangled from parallelism and meter and focuses on how poetic structure can be heard and perceived. It suggests that the line-units of biblical poetry emerge in the cognitive experience of the listener/reader and provides an account of the free-rhythm versification system of biblical poetry. This approach accounts for the wide diversity of lines and poems in the Bible and illuminates both the structures of biblical poetry and the artistry of potential effects.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 20 December 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

For over two and a half centuries, biblical Hebrew poetry scholarship has been dominated by the assumption of metrical structure and the concept of parallelism. While there is a growing consensus that biblical poetry does not adhere to strict metrical rules, there remains no consensus on what precisely constitutes parallelism or what distinguishes biblical poetry from verse or poetry without meter, graphical lineation, and the marking of line endings. Unparalleled Poetry argues for a fresh perspective on biblical poetry, one that is detached from both parallelism and meter. Drawing from the work of Reuven Tsur in Cognitive Poetics, Emmylou Grosser reorients the discussion of biblical poetic structure towards how it can be perceived and heard by the listener or reader. Grosser posits that the line units of biblical poetry arise from the cognitive experience of the listener or reader and offers an account of the free-rhythm versification system employed in biblical poetry. Her cognitive approach to biblical poetry accounts for the diverse range of lines and poems found in the Bible, shedding light on both the structural elements of biblical poetry and the potential for artistic effects. Unparalleled Poetry presents a compelling new paradigm for readers of the Bible, while also opening up new avenues for the study of nonmetrical poetries and phenomena known as parallelism across different cultures and literary traditions.

Weight: 624g
Dimension: 242 x 163 x 29 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780190902360