Re: Hebrew poetry was Re: Insane Question

At 7:33 PM -0600 1/27/03, Peter Clark wrote:
>On Monday 27 January 2003 01:01 pm, Karapcik, Mike wrote:
>>         Old Semitic poetry is often described as "step poetry". In this,
>> one phrase or idea is repeated regularly and expanded upon each time.
>        The basic unit of the (Biblical) Hebrew poem is the colon (plural cola).
>There is usually a balancing between combinations of cola, which is refered
>to as parallelism. The most frequent combination is the bicolon (two cola in
>parallelism; e.g. Ps. 1:6) with the tricolon (three cola in parallelism; e.g.
>Ps. 100:1) and monocolon (one colon standing alone, e.g. Ps. 1:1a) occuring
>at times as well.
>        There are three common types of parallelism, the first, synonymous
>parallelism, states that A is essentially parallel in meaning to B (Ps.
>20:1). The second, antithetical parallelism, constrasts A and B (Ps. 20:7).
>The third, synthetic parallelism, is more of a catch-all category, in that
>the relationship between A and B is much looser, which include:
>(1) a statement or reason (B gives reason for A, often connected by "because"
>or "for")
>(2) statement/question (A or B is a question, e.g. Ps. 6:5, 119:9)
>(3) statement/refrain (refrain B s repeated throught the psalm section)
>(4) comparison (A is a simile, withe B expressing the reality of the
>comparison, e.g. Ps. 103:13)
>(5) progression (B extends or develops the thought found in A, e.g. Is. 40:9,
>Ps. 1:3)
>(6) specification or explanation (B explains or makes the thought in A more
>specific, e.g. Ps. 18:24, Ps. 72:9)
>(7) statement/result (B provides the result or purpose of A, often connected
>by "to" or "that").
Don't forget chiasmus; elements of the first line are repeated in reverse order in
the second. This pattern can be extended through a whole passage spanning
several verses. Some notable examples include: Gen 7: 21-23; Ps 3:7-8; Ps 58;
Ps 64; Ps 67; Ps 86; Isa 55:8-9. It's more of a technical trick than a semantic
category, but it seems to be very characteristic of Biblical verse.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga                                               Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"It is important not to let one's aesthetics interfere with the appreciation of
fact." - Stephen Anderson