Bob MacDonald and I are beginning a joint project: that of rendering the poetry and prosody of the psalms visually. The visual representation of prosody and the varieties of parallelism which characterize ancient Hebrew poetry through format, colors, and other visual means, is a largely unexploited method of mediating aspects of the form and structure of examples of ancient Hebrew poetry.
For a first, rough draft of Psalm 46, go here. This is, of course, a work in progress. For example, stanza boundaries are visually marked, but strophes are not (two or three versets make up a line; two or three lines make up a strophe; and two or three strophes make up a stanza, according to a text model I summarize here and exemplify here). Bob reflects on Psalm 46 and some of the challenges here. For the scansion and translation of Psalm 46 that served as Bob’s point of departure for a visualization of the psalm, go here.
I became acutely aware of the power of visual ways of learning at Assisi in the summer of 1991. Along with rabbi Luciano Caro and professore Ambrogio Spreafico, I had been invited by “Biblia,” an “associazione laica” of “cultura biblica,” to lead a seminar on the Psalms. The a-confessional association “Biblia,” I should say in passing, represents a model for the diffusion of “biblical culture” that is sorely lacking, so far as I know, in the United States, Canada, and other countries besides Italy in the EU. In all of these countries and more, the model has the potential of being a smashing success. The association is not the product of the academy or a church, though it co-opts people from both. I will describe the association in more detail in another post.
The association asked the three of us to lead the seminar because we represented three different ways of reading the Psalms: Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant. The seminar was graciously hosted, if memory serves, by the diocesan bishop Sergio Goretti.
As the Protestant of the group, and old-school on top of that, insofar as I am accustomed to reading the Psalms with the help of the boring historical-critical method, I found myself terribly out-gunned. Rabbi Caro enchanted the audience with geometric representations of the structure of the psalms in the shape of a menorah, and waxed on in typical midrashic fashion. Professor Spreafico came with transparencies of the psalms which he would mark up in multiple colors not once but over and over again, revealing to us thereby examples of repetitio, inclusio, and chiasmus, and invited us, through interactive learning, to do likewise according to our own lights. For my part, I bored the audience by lecturing to them about the psalms in their historical context. I compared them with the Assyro-Babylonian laments and Egyptian hymns, made form-critical observations, and pointed out that the Davidic psalms were, at least for the most part, probably not written by David, but composed for the use of Davidides during the monarchy. I was, in other words, a consummate killjoy.
Thank goodness for the round-table discussions in which the three of us patted each other on the back and confessed to learn from each other’s approaches.
I don’t have the proper training or the right inclination to follow rabbi Caro’s lead, but I think Spreafico and MacDonald are on to something I might be able to handle.
I feel a little bit sorry for Bob, though, in that he chose to invite me, a stickler for philological detail, into his visual world. Anal-retentive types and artists do not always get along.
Your prayers and advice are appreciated.
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