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9781009366274

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'With high critical intelligence and the ear of a poet, Yosefa Raz illuminates, in comparative fashion, exemplary instances in the history of powerful strain of post-Biblical poetry. Her close attention to the texture and traditions of prophetic poetry, in well-chosen instances from the Bible to the past century, show us once again how compelling and urgent such poetry can be.' Ian Balfour, Professor Emeritus, York University, Toronto 'The Poetics of Prophecy is a masterful work of comparative literature, graced with a poet's touch. Yosefa Raz uncovers a dialectic between strong and weak prophecy—the one transformative yet aggressive, the other chastening – from the Bible to late Romanticism, Isaiah's Israel to our own time. Raz illuminates the manifold works she looks upon.' Adam Potkay, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Humanities & English, William & Mary 'In this brilliant and highly original book, Yosefa Raz shows how modern poets and scholars invented a new perception of prophecy. In their writings, biblical prophets are not extolled for their rhetorical power but rather for their bold acknowledgment of failure. Prophetic stammers and anxieties, according to Raz, are not merely disastrous in their incommunicability: this is precisely where literary creativity begins. Beautifully written, this book offers a major contribution to our understanding of an unknown chapter in the reception of prophetic traditions.' Ilana Pardes, Katharine Cornell Professor of Comparative Literature, Hebrew University of Jerusalem 'Yosefa Raz makes a very strong case for weak prophecy. Every paragraph of this memorable manifesto is a revelation and a delight. It is hard to imagine any other author who could move so deftly between biblical literature, histories of biblical criticism, and poetry, and seem equally at home with the prophet Isaiah, Ahad Ha'am, Ann Carson and William Blake. What is most impressive is the author's skill in combining beautiful close readings, striking syntheses and comparisons, and new ways of framing 'secularism', orality and media, and the complexity of biblical afterlives. This wise and rich book has clearly been a long time in the making—and its striking oracles deserve a careful hearing, from biblical scholars and literary critics alike.' Yvonne Sherwood, Visiting Research Professor of Religion, University of Oslo

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Yosefa Raz is teaches in the department of English Literature at the University of Haifa, where she specializes the study of the Bible and its reception, poetry and poetics, and Romantic and contemporary poetry. She is also a poet and translator, with work recently published in The Brooklyn Rail, Boston Review, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.

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