Language:
English
Year of publication:
2023
Titel der Quelle:
Prooftexts; a Journal of Jewish Literary History
Angaben zur Quelle:
40,1 (2023) 190-226
Keywords:
Lowth, Robert, Criticism and interpretation
;
Lazarus, Emma, Criticism and interpretation
;
Bible Hermeneutics
;
Hebrew poetry, Biblical History and criticism
;
Protestants History
;
Jews History 19th century
;
Judaism Relations 19th century
;
Christianity
Abstract:
This article shows how new trends in Protestant biblical hermeneutics in nineteenth-century America helped to raise the cultural status of modern-day Jews, while inspiring bold new directions in American Jewish literary culture. The interpretive framework under discussion emerged in the work of Bishop Robert Lowth and Johann Gottfried Herder, whose studies of biblical poetry became highly influential in the United States when they were both published at the height of the Second Great Awakening. By reconceptualizing biblical poetry (especially in the works of the biblical prophets) as sublime art, their approach created the possibility for valorizing the biblical tradition for its aesthetic power alongside its religious teachings. Since Jews were commonly seen as continuous with biblical Israel, this approach meant that Jews could be seen as heirs to a glorious literary tradition, a point that American Jewish poets, such as Emma Lazarus, emphasized when they launched their own poetic experiments modeled on the biblical prophets.
DOI:
10.2979/ptx.2023.a899253
URL:
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