Art of Biblical Poetry » (1st Edition)

Robert Alter is professor of hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of, most recently, the highly praised biography of Stendhal, A Lion for Love (Basic Books, 1979).

The author of "The Art of Biblical Narrative" provides a fresh interpretation of the poetry of the Old Testament and a lucid, original account of how biblical poetry works.

Library Journal

A companion volume to Alter's earlier The Art of Biblical Narrative ( LJ 8/81), this excellent book investigates both the structuresespecially parallelism, intensification, choice of detailand the effects of biblical Hebrew poetry. Not only the literary and the biblical scholar but also the relatively sophisticated general reader will profit from this clearly written book. Through many examples and through comparisons of the treatment of the same events in biblical prose and biblical poetry, Alter demonstrates how biblical authors used poetry to discover meaning: ``poetry is quintessentially the mode of expression in which the surface is the depth'' so that form and meaning are intimately united. Highly recommended. Carolyn M. Craft, English, Philosophy & Foreign Languages Dept., Longwood Coll., Farmville, Va.