Psalm 119 Poetry

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Psalm 119/Poetry
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About the Poetics Layer

Exploring the Psalms as poetry is crucial for understanding and experiencing the psalms and thus for faithfully translating them into another language. This layer is comprised of two main parts: Poetic Structure and Poetic Features.


This resource is in the process of reformatting. To view the notes on the Poetic Structure of Psalm 119, click here.


Poetic Structure

  What is Poetic Structure?

In poetic structure, we analyse the structure of the psalm beginning at the most basic level of the structure: the line (also known as the “colon” or “hemistich”). Then, based on the perception of patterned similarities (and on the assumption that the whole psalm is structured hierarchically), we argue for the grouping of lines into verses, verses into strophes, strophes into stanzas, etc. Because patterned similarities might be of various kinds (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, sonic) the analysis of poetic structure draws on all of the previous layers (especially the Discourse layer).

Poetic Macro-structure

Psalm 119 - Updated Poetic Structure.jpg

Line Divisions

Psalm 119 - Updated Line Division Ps 119.jpg

This resource is in the process of reformatting. To view the notes on the Poetic Features of Psalm 119, click here.


Poetic Features

Psalm 119 - Poetic Feature 1.jpg

Psalm 119 - Poetic Feature 2.jpg

Psalm 119 - Poetic Feature 3 Updated.jpg

This resource is forthcoming.


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Footnotes