Ancient Hebrew Poetry

"Examples of ancient Hebrew poetry abound in the Hebrew Bible and beyond. Poetry in any language is characterized by a fusion of form and content that satisfies and surprises at the same time. The more we know about the form a poem instantiates, the sharper an image we will have of the poem and the message it conveys. That being so, a reader of ancient Hebrew poetry will eventually ask: What continuously operating principles of organization define the way ancient Hebrew poetry works? What formal structures set poetry apart from narrative or speech as they otherwise occur in ancient Hebrew literature? Are there rules that govern the formation of a poetic line or a poetic composition, rules that we do not fully understand, or have yet to be discovered? This blog is dedicated to an examination of these questions. In the posts which follow, I provide an overview of previous attempts at describing ancient Hebrew poetry, and I advance a descriptive model of my own. Comments and responses are more than welcome.