#robert alter

[jewish-microwave-laser]

accidentally flipped to the notes section of the wrong chapter and was incredibly confused for a moment

[mswyrr]

The way the churches I was raised in expected us all to buy that the book of erotic poetry in the Bible was chaste and wholly spiritual lol

Caps from Robert Alter's scholarly translation "strong as death is love: the song of songs, ruth, esther, jonah, and daniel"

[gothicintrigue]

“In this way the overflowing presentness of the city, its enrapturing variety and intensity as the collective manifestation of life here and now, is played off against the vision of the city as a poignant instance of the ephemerality of all things. Metaphor plays a key role in both perspectives...whereas in Dickens metaphor serves to realize the subject in often surprising, revelatory ways, in Woolf metaphor is chiefly used to interpret the subject, to embody an attitude toward it or evoke a mood it inspires in the observer”

— IMAGINED CITIES by Robert Alter

[existential-celestial]

Yehuda Amichai, from “Autumn, Love, Commercials” in The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai, edited by Robert Alter

[lepartiprisdeschoses]

Yes, there's a mine for silver and a place where gold is refined. Iron from the dust is taken and from stone the copper to smelt. An end has man set to darkness, and each limit he has probed, the stone of deep gloom and death's shadow. He breaks under a stream without dwellers, forgotten by any foot, remote and devoid of men. The earth from which bread comes forth, and beneath it a churning like fire. The source of the sapphire, its stones, and gold dust is there. A path that the vulture knows not nor the eye of the falcon beholds. The proud beasts have never trod on it, nor the lion passed over it. To the flintstone he set his hand, upended mountains from their roots. Through the rocks he hacked out channels, and all precious things his eye has seen. The wellsprings of rivers he blocked. What was hidden he brought out to light. But wisdom, where is it found, and where is the place of insight? Man does not know its worth, and it is not found in the land of the living.

Of course these lines from Job 28 1-13 remind me of Minecraft, but that isn’t the main reason I like them.

[anaxerneas]

God's speech from the whirlwind in Raymond Scheindlin and Robert Alter's translations

[ask-jumblr]

does anyone have good or bad things to say about robert alter's translation of the tanakh w/ commentary? i'm not sure if it matters for this question but my FOR is approximately reconstructionist/reform and i'm open to anyone's opinion about it!

.

[anastasiaoftheironwood]

Poem: from "My Mother's House"—Leah Goldberg

from MY MOTHER'S HOUSE —Leah Goldberg Translated from Hebrew by Robert Alter

My mother's mother died in the spring of her days. Her daughter Would not remember her face. Her portrait inscribed In my grandfather's heart Was expunged from the world of images After his death.

Only her mirror was left in the house. Through the passage of time it had sunk in its silver frame. And I, her pale grand-daughter, I who do not resemble her, Today look into it as into A lake hiding treasures Under the water.

Deep down, behind my face, I see a young woman With ruddy cheeks, smiling. A wig on her head. She fixes A long earring to her earlobe, threading it Through the tiny hole in the delicate flesh Of the ear.

Deep down, behind my face, shines The bright golden fleck in her eyes. And the mirror maintains The family tradition: That she was very beautiful.