THE BIBLICAL TRADITION IN MODERN LITERATURE

This course will explore the biblical tradition in modern literature beyond the dichotomy of East and West. We will focus on close readings of selections from the Hebrew Bible in English translation in conjunction with a series of poems written in different languages that make central use of these biblical sources, from William Blake to Leonard Cohen, from Itzik Manger to Yehuda Amichai, and from Rilke to Else Lasker-Schuler. One underlying concern of the course will be the function of various types of biblical intertextuality (allusion, parody, translation, etc).  We will explore the ways modern poets confront and transform their literary antecedents, and the manners in which a literary tradition articulates itself through a process of restless allusion in general, and the rewriting of biblical narrative and poetry in particular. No previous familiarity with the Bible is presumed, and thus one of the goals of the course will be learning to read and to appreciate the distinctive literary structures and conventions of the Bible. Collaborative work in small groups will be facilitated and encouraged.

READINGS:

David Curzon, Modern Poems on the Bible (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 2010), 2nd Edition

The JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh [Bible] (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 2001)

Graham Allen, Intertextuality (The New Critical Idiom Series) (London: Routledge, 2011), 2nd Edition [paperback]

Course Reader (to reflect poetry in languages in which students are working)