Three Thousand Years of Hebrew Versification : Essays in Comparative Prosody / Benjamin Harshav.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harshav, Benjamin, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hebrew language--Versification.

Hebrew language.

Hebrew poetry--History and criticism.

Hebrew poetry.

Hebrew language--Syllabication.

Hebrew language--Rhythm.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (375 pages)

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In this unparalleled study of the forms of Hebrew poetry, preeminent authority Benjamin Harshav examines Hebrew verse during three millennia of changing historical and cultural contexts. He takes us around the world of the Jewish Diaspora, comparing the changes in Hebrew verse as it came into contact with the Canaanite, Greek, Arabic, Italian, German, Russian, Yiddish, and English poetic forms. Harshav explores the types and constraints of free rhythms, the meanings of sound patterns, the historical and linguistic frameworks that produced the first accentual iambs in English, German, Russian, and Hebrew, and the discovery of these iambs in a Yiddish romance written in Venice in 1508/09. In each chapter, the author presents an innovative analytical theory on a particular poetic domain, drawing on his close study of thousands of Hebrew poems.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Prelude

Acknowledgments

A Note to the Reader

1. Basic Aspects of Meter and Rhythm

2. Do Sounds Have Meaning?

3. Rhythms of the Bible Revisited

4. The Systems of Hebrew Versification

5. The Discovery of Accentual Iambs in European Poetry

6. Basic Forms of Modern Yiddish Poetry

7. The Constraints of Freedom in Modern Yiddish Poetry

8. Free Rhythms in Yiddish Folksongs

Appendix A: Perception, Rhythmical Groups, and the Bible (1959)

Appendix B: Toward a Critical Theory of the Structures and Functions of Modern Poetry (1959)

Appendix C: A List of Spanish Hebrew Meters

Notes

Publications by Benjamin Harshav (Formerly Hrushovski) on Prosody and Related Fields

Index of Persons

Index of Topics in Prosody and Literature

Index of Hebrew Versification and Yiddish Poetry

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Feb 2020)

ISBN:

0-300-14573-X

OCLC:

1143816867