Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>]

Rochelle wrote:-

> With Biblical texts, it's very simple -- they say it's a song. :-)

Well, I wondered if it was something that simple.

> Come to think of it, would you ever class Kohelet as song and not poetry?
> It's not merely a matter of style.

Perhaps not Kohelet but I have read a study of Job which claimed it was
an ancient libretto. The author assigned various parts to soloists
and the chorus much like an opera or stage show. I did not find the
study convincing but the author must have thought Job was a collection
of songs to have completed and published the study.

One could probably make the same argument about the poems which
Schubert set in his song cycles. I've sung the complete Die Schoene
Muellerin and worked extensively on Die Winteriese. The poems
were written without thought of them being set to music. Schubert,
in his genius, wrote music which could accomdate the differing
syllable lengths of the lines and each verse sounds equally
natural.

> If you wish more modern examples, look at Elizabethan and Jacobean plays.
> Poetry, yes, but there is no mistaking the songs in the texts for poetry.

But people have set parts of Shakespeare's plays to music. Dr Arne
was one. Schubert set some German translations of Shakespeare's poems
to music, for example An Sylvia. The problem with setting a play
written in poetry to music is that the resulting opera reaches
Wagnerian proportions. It can be done, for example Verdi's Otello
with words by Arrigo Boito, from Shakespeare's Othello, or Falstaff
again with words by Arrigo Boito, from Shakespeare's play The Merry
Wives of Windsor.

I read some Ezra Pound a few years ago which emphasised the close
link between poetry and music. I can't remember the exact quote
but the thought was that if poetry strayed too far from music it
withered and died. That seems a very natural association to make.
I would surprize me if the ancients thought otherwise.

Bill Rea, IT Services, University of Canterbury \_
E-Mail bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz               </   New
Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax  64-3-364-2332       /)  Zealand
Unix Systems Administrator                   (/'

On Mon, 1 May 2006, Rochelle Altman wrote:

> Hi, Bill,
>
> At 12:27 AM 5/1/2006, you wrote:
> >Rochelle wrote:-
> >
> > >You are on track. The structure of the song (a Psalm is a song, NOT a
> > >poem) is of extreme importance.
> >
> >How can you tell a poem from a song in Hebrew?  If it is of
> >extreme importance as you say, then there must be some very simple
> >method of deciding which is which. In English and
> >in other languages I've sung (German, French, Italian)
> >it is impossible to tell them apart. I'll agree that it is far
> >more common for a poem to be set to music than for lyrics to be
> >read as poetry, but it is sometimes done.
>
>
> Yes, I am aware that modern experiments, etc., do blur the distinctions...
> but we are not talking about modern.poetry/songs. We are talking about
> antiquity... and they did differentiate.
>
> Actually, what is important to remember is that songs are not poems. The
> ancients treated song differently, classified differently.; While these
> differences are most evident when the texts are set to melodies,
> differences can be seen even without the melody. Jeremiah is full of poetic
> insertions. Very literary too..(You can see how clever he thought himself.)
> Could you ever think of Jeremiah's poetry as song? It was chanted, to be
> sure -- melody is a terrific mnemonic -- but a song? like a Psalm?
>
>
> Then, as a long-time collector of folk music....  yes, you can tell the
> difference between a poem and a song...
>
>
> Not functioning too well at the moment; have a bad cold... get back to you
> later with examples.
>
> Rochelle
>
>
>
>
> >Bill Rea, IT Services, University of Canterbury \_
> >E-Mail bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz               </   New
> >Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax  64-3-364-2332       /)  Zealand
> >Unix Systems Administrator                   (/'
> >
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>