Shlama Brethren, I wanted to write briefly about one of the most important, yet least understood aspects of historical poetry in general. In the West, we have been accustomed to thinking of poetry (as Akhi Andrew has stated), as almost Shakespearean in chacacter. Much of what the West has come to regard as beautiful poetry is modeled after the style and prose of Greek poetry. When we come to try and understand Semitic poetry, there are some very distinct features which are quite alien to the Western ideal. This is by no means meant to be a exhaustive treatment of this subject, since it really would take an entire book to explain it sufficiently. But, I shall try my hardest within a few paragraphs to give a satisfactory background. In Greek, there are some very special laws that have to be followed, and long or short syllables must follow each other, according to a very strict order, to form a verse. In Semitic languages, on the other hand, the nature and number of syllables are not determined, and the poetic unit is *not* the verse, but the *strophe*, which requires, throughout the poem, a regular number of *stiches*, grouped together according to a harmonious parallelism. In other words, the Semitic poetry is concerned with a rhyming "thought", whereas in Western poetry, it is a question merely of rhyming the sound of the last syllable, and with equal dictions, etc. A perfect example of this Semitic poetry is Zakharyah's canticle (3 strophes, with 7 stiches each). For a really fantastic Semitic poet who demonstrates this very clearly, check out St. Ephraem (4th century Assyrian deacon), his poems are all over the web, and he is the Aramaic poet "par excellence". If the poems of *any* of the Gospels had been composed (or thought) in Greek, they would have to depend on the laws of Greek poetry; but this is not the case at all. The Benedictus, the Magnificat, the Lord's Prayer, Zacharyah's Canticle, the Prologue of Yukhanan......none of these respect the Greek laws of poetry; rather the opposite, they are constructed according to the rules of Semitic poetry. I will be posting examples of this type of poetry in the future on this forum as I find them. Shlama w'Burkate, Paul
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