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Prose and Poetry in the Mythic and Epic Texts from Ugarit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Frank Moore Cross
Frank Moore Cross
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

I. The myths and epics of Ugarit are composed in poetic formulae and patterns which reveal original oral composition. Parallelistic structure derives, originally at least, from the techniques of orally composed poetry, and the use of traditional formulae including parallelistic pairs has been well established in Ugaritic and Early Hebrew poetry. Usually the formulaic structure gives an extreme symmetry or regularity to Ugaritic verse.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , January 1974 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1974

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References

1 See most recently the Harvard dissertations of Richard Whitaker, Douglas Stuart, and Stephen Geller, all dealing with the structure and orality of Ugaritic and early Hebrew poetry. That the Ugaritic texts were dictated by a skilled singer is evident from such a colophon as CTA 6.6.53ff.:

sāpiru ʼilimilku šbniyyu

lamīdu ʼatn prln rabbu kāhinīma, etc.

scribe: ʼIlimilku the Šbnite,

master singer, ʼAtn Prln, chief priest, etc.

On lmd, “master singer,” cf. mlmd (šyr), 1 Chron. 25:7.

2 For ʼahl (singular) and mšknt as a formulaic pair, see 17.5.32.

3 See CTA 14:94–104 = 182–194 discussed below.

4 Cf. 3.4.13–16; 2.3.4–5; 17–646–49; 1.3.23.

5 Long and short units, in stress notation 3 and 2, in my terminology l(ongum) and b(reve), appear both as fundamental building blocks in Ugaritic and Hebrew poetry.

6 It is fair to say, I believe, that Homeric verse is less regular on the surface than Ugaritic verse; however, we know the rules of Greek metrics, and hence can perceive its full symmetry.

7 Lord, Albert B., The Singer of Tales (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 127Google Scholar.

8 See above, note 1.

9 The following lines, CTA 6.6.14–17, become regular (a balanced tricolon) once again.

10 We read here the infinitive absolute.

11 Cf. CTA 5.6.25f.