The Poetics of Biblical Narrative

Meir Sternberg

Description

"This . . . is a brilliant work." —Choice

"[Sternberg] has written a very important book, both for his comprehensiveness and for the clearly-avowed faith stance from which he understands and interprets the strategies of the biblical narratives. . . . a superb overview . . . " —Theological Studies

" . . . rated very highly indeed. It is a book to read and then reread." —Modern Language Review

" . . . Sternberg has accomplished an enormous task, enriching our understanding of the theoretical basis of biblical narrative and giving us insight into a remarkable number of particular texts." —Journal of the American Academy of Religion

" . . . an important book for those who seek to take the Bible seriously as a literary work because it shows, more clearly and emphatically than any book I know, that the Bible is a serious literary work—a text manifesting a highly sophisticated and successful narrative poetics." —Adele Berlin, Prooftexts

Preface

1. Literary Text, Literary Approach: Getting the Questions Straight
Discourse and Source
Fiction and History
Form and Doctrine
The Drama of Reading

2. Narrative Models

3. Ideology of Narration and Narration of Ideology
Omniscience Charged and Monopolized: The Epistemological Revolution
The Omnipotence Effect: Control Claimed and Disclaimed

4. Viewpoints and Interpretations
Point of View and Its Biblical Configuration
The Wooing of Rebekah
Positions and Discrepancies Established
The Movement form Divergence to Convergence of Perspectives
New Tensions and Final Resolution

5. The Play of Perspectives
Narrator vs. God
Narrator and Reader vs. God and Characters Spheres of Communication
Three Reading Positions
From Plot to Perspective
From Ignorance to Knowledge
Privilege and Performance

6. Gaps, Ambiquity and the Reading Process
The Literary Work as a System of Gaps
The Story of David and Bathsheba: On the Narrator's Reticence and Omissions
The Ironic Exposition
What Is the King Doing in the City?
Uriah the Hittite Recalled to Jerusalem
Does Uriah Know about His Wife's Doings? The Twofold Hypothesis
What Does David Think That Uriah Thinks? The Three-Way Hypothesis
How Joab Fails to Carry Out David's Order
The Analogy to the Story of Abimelech and the Woman
On Mutually Exclusive Systems of Gap-Filling: Turning the Screws of Henry James and Others

7. Between the Truth and the Whole Truth
Foolproof Composition in Ambiguity
The Relevance of Absence
Temporary and Permanent Gapping
The Echoing Interrogative
Opposition in Juxtaposition
Coherence Threatened and Fortified
Norms and Their Violations
From Gapping to Closure: The Functions of Ambiguity

8. Temporal Discontinuity, Narrative Interest, and the Emergence of Meaning
Suspense and the Dynamics of Prospection
The Pros and Cons of Suspense in the Bible
Modes of Shaping the Narrative Future
Darkness in Light, or: Zigzagging toward Sisera's End
Curiosity and the Dynamics of Retrospection
Joseph and His Brothers: Making Sense of the Past
Surprise and the Dynamics of Recognition

9. Proleptic Portraits
Character and Characterization: From Divine to Human
Why the Truth about Character Does Not Suffice
The Art of the Proleptic Epithet
Epithets and the Rule of Forward-looking Exposition

10. Going from Surface to Depth
Character as Action, Character in Action
The Composition of Character and the Limits of Metonymic Inference
Old Age in Genesis
Good Looks in Samuel

11. The Structure of Repetition: Strategies of Informational Redundancy
Similarity Patterns and the Structure of Repetition
Formulaic Convention or Functional Principle?
Constant and Variable Factors
Verbatim Repetition
Repetition with Variation: Forms and Functions of Deviance
Repetition and Communication: Pharah's Dream
Basic Axes and Natural Combinations
From Natural to Functional Combinations
Deliberate Variation: (Figural) Rhetoric within (Narratorial) Rhetoric
Generic Transformation into Parable
Permutations and Some Complications
Repetition and Narrative Art: Some General Consequences

12. The Art of Persusion
Persuading in the Court of Conscience
Delicate Balance in the Rape of Dinah
The Rhetorical Repertoire

13. Ideology, Rhetoric, Poetics
Justifying the Ways of God to Man: Saul's Rejection
Dancing in Chains
Dialogue as Pressure, Variations as Judgment
Convergence with Belated Discovery: Rhetorical Overkill

Notes

Index

Sujets

• Biblical Studies
• Biblical Interpretation
• Biblical Criticism
• Jewish Studies
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• Literature
• Criticism
• General officer
• Religion
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 22 août 1987
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253114044
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE POETICS OF BIBLICAL NARRATIVE
Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature
Herbert Marks and Robert Polzin, General Editors
THE POETICS OF BIBLICAL NARRATIVE
Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading

MEIR STERNBERG

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS BLOOMINGTON
First Midland Book Edition 1987
Indiana University Press Bloomington
Copyright 1985 by Meir Sternberg
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of Indiana University Press.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Sternberg, Meir The poetics of biblical narrative
(Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Bible as literature. I. Title. II. Series
BS535.S725 1985 809 .93522 85-42752
cl. ISBN 0-253-34521-9
pa. ISBN 0-253-20453-4
6 7 8 99
To the memory of my beloved mother, Esther Sternberg, n e Friedmann
CONTENTS
Preface

1. Literary Text, Literary Approach: Getting the Questions Straight

Discourse and Source
Fiction and History
Form and Doctrine
The Drama of Reading

2. Narrative Models

3. Ideology of Narration and Narration of Ideology

Omniscience Charged and Monopolized: The Epistemological Revolution
The Omnipotence Effect: Control Claimed and Disclaimed

4. Viewpoints and Interpretations

Point of View and Its Biblical Configuration
The Wooing of Rebekah

Positions and Discrepancies Established
The Movement from Divergence to Convergence of Perspectives
New Tensions and Final Resolution

5. The Play of Perspectives

Narrator vs. God
Narrator and Reader vs. God and Characters Spheres of Communication
Three Reading Positions
From Plot to Perspective
From Ignorance to Knowledge
Privilege and Performance

6. Gaps, Ambiguity and the Reading Process

The Literary Work as a System of Gaps
The Story of David and Bathsheba: On the Narrator s Reticence and Omissions

The Ironic Exposition
What Is the King Doing in the City?
Uriah the Hittite Recalled to Jerusalem
Does Uriah Know about His Wife s Doings? The Twofold Hypothesis
What Does David Think That Uriah Thinks? The Three-Way Hypothesis
How Joab Fails to Carry Out David s Order
How the Messenger Fails to Carry Out Joab s Order
The Analogy to the Story of Abimelech and the Woman

On Mutually Exclusive Systems of Gap-Filling: Turning the Screws of Henry James and Others

7. Between the Truth and the Whole Truth

Foolproof Composition in Ambiguity
The Relevance of Absence
Temporary and Permanent Gapping
The Echoing Interrogative
Opposition in Juxtaposition
Coherence Threatened and Fortified
Norms and Their Violations
From Gapping to Closure: The Functions of Ambiguity

8. Temporal Discontinuity, Narrative Interest, and the Emergence of Meaning

Suspense and the Dynamics of Prospection

The Pros and Cons of Suspense in the Bible
Modes of Shaping the Narrative Future
Darkness in Light, or: Zigzagging toward Siseras End

Curiosity and the Dynamics of Retrospection

Joseph and His Brothers: Making Sense of the Past

Surprise and the Dynamics of Recognition

9. Proleptic Portraits

Character and Characterization: From Divine to Human
Why the Truth about Character Does Not Suffice
The Art of the Proleptic Epithet
Epithets and the Rule of Forward-looking Exposition

10. Going from Surface to Depth

Character as Action, Character in Action
The Composition of Character and the Limits of Metonymic Inference
Old Age in Genesis
Good Looks in Samuel

11. The Structure of Repetition: Strategies of Informational Redundancy

Similarity Patterns and the Structure of Repetition
Formulaic Convention or Functional Principle?
Constant and Variable Factors
Verbatim Repetition
Repetition with Variation: Forms and Functions of Deviance
Repetition and Communication: Pharaoh s Dream
Basic Axes and Natural Combinations
From Natural to Functional Combinations
Deliberate Variation: (Figural) Rhetoric within (Narratorial) Rhetoric
Generic Transformation into Parable
Permutations and Some Complications
Repetition and Narrative Art: Some General Consequences

12. The Art of Persuasion

Persuading in the Court of Conscience
Delicate Balance in the Rape of Dinah
The Rhetorical Repertoire

13. Ideology, Rhetoric, Poetics

Justifying the Ways of God to Man: Saul s Rejection
Dancing in Chains
Dialogue as Pressure, Variations as Judgment
Convergence with Belated Discovery: Rhetorical Overkill
Notes
Index
PREFACE
Some of the book s theses and analyses have appeared in a long series of articles on the subject, and I am grateful for permission to use the material: The King Through Ironic Eyes: The Narrator s Devices in the Story of David and Bathsheba and Two Excursuses on the Theory of the Narrative Text, Hasifrut 1 (1968) 263-92; Caution, A Literary Text! Problems in the Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, Hasifrut 2 (1970) 608-63; Delicate Balance in the Story of the Rape of Dinah: Biblical Narrative and the Rhetoric of Narrative, Hasifrut 4 (1973) 193-231; The Structure of Repetition in Biblical Narrative: Strategies of Informational Redundancy, Hasifrut 25 (1977) 109-50; Between the Truth and the Whole Truth in Biblical Narrative: The Rendering of Inner Life by Telescoped Inside View and Interior Monologue, Hasifrut 29 (1979) 110-46; Patterns of Similarity: Part and Whole In Biblical Composition, presented to the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies (1981); Language, World, and Perspective in Biblical Art: Free Indirect Discourse and Modes of Covert Penetration, Hasifrut 32 (1983) 88-131; The Bible s Art of Persuasion: Ideology, Rhetoric, and Poetics in Saul s Fall, Hebrew Union College Annual (1983) 45-82. The two earliest articles were written in collaboration with Menakhem Perry. As the notes will indicate, I have also freely transplanted ideas and examples from my various theoretical studies; or perhaps I should say retrieved, since the theories themselves often trace back to my exploration of biblical practice.
This being a rather long book, it is only fair to point out that the argument covers both less and more ground than may appear. Less, because it does not incorporate all the work I have done on the Bible since the sixties, not even all the published work. The emphasis here falls not just on narrative as distinct from other genres but on those narrative principles crucial to the marriage of ideology to reading that governs biblical poetics. Involving problems underrated or neglected in literary theory itself, the working and rules of this ideological art need systematic reconstruction. To keep the argument in focus, therefore, I reserve for separate treatment issues like the Bible s generic variety, its composition of units into books, or its modes of rendering speech and thought, discussed in some of the papers listed above.
On the other hand, this volume covers more ground than its table of contents may suggest. For one thing, since narrative always works in opposition to other genres and biblical narrative even incorporates them into its prose, questions of generic variety often rise to the surface. Such glances at the meaningful opposition between prose narrative and poetry or parable bear, for instance, on speech situation, rhetorical strategy, transparence of discourse, making sense of discrepant or, on the contrary, parallel and apparently repetitive units. Within narrative itself, for another thing, my tracing of the Bible s rich and novel repertoire of forms is intentionally distributed (up to the end of chapter 12 , where the whole picture emerges) in order to put it in its proper place. However impressive that repertoire, it still figures only as a means to an end, offering the biblical artist an assorted set of choices to be made and coordinated and varied according to higher principles. Contrary to what some recent attempts at literary analysis seem to assume, form has no value or meaning apart from communicative (historical, ideological, aesthetic) function. Nor has its typology as such. Accordingly, I have decided against isolating several of the Bible s protean forms that I am most concerned with in a variety of roles and contexts. To mention three that recur throughout: analogical structure; modes of naming or reference; types of quotation, including dialogue and free indirect style. Readers with special interest in such techniques may want to consult the Index (as well as the references to more continuous discussions given in the notes).
In emphasis and arrangement, more generally, this differs from the book that I might write, indeed from the drafts I did write, without the benefit of hindsight. For its thrust reflects the experience gained from the reception and fortunes of my published work on the Bible over the last fifteen years. Starting from the repercussions of the very first essay in the series ( The King Through Ironic Eyes, 1968), the need for a poetics offering a new language and sense of purpose has turned out even deeper, certainly more widespread, than one familiar with the unhappy state of the field might expect. Even the antagonism evoked, often to be silently revoked in time, would appear only differently revealing from the more common welcome and acceptance. By a process too recent and multiple to trace, but clearly gaining momentum, the situation has changed for the better since. Gaps, ambiguity, redundancy, exposition, temporal ordering, omniscient viewpoint, reading process, patterns of analogy, alternative forms of reference, indirect characterization and rhetoric: such concepts (among the most productive so far) show signs of generating a powerful discourse about the Bible, which traditional scholarship must