The sound of suffering : phonological correspondences in the Book of Job

Summary In this thesis I examine the use of phonological correspondences as a poetic device in the Book of Job. The theoretical framework for the study is the structuralistic theories of poetics developed by Roman Jakobson, as presented in his article “Linguistics and Poetics” (1959), and the theories of phonological parallelism presented by Adele Berlin in her work The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism (1985). Berlin focuses on what she calls “sound pairs”: a series of consonantal phonemes repeated (in any order within close text proximity) in otherwise parallel text passages. I look for cases of sound pairs in the Book of Job, and I also record other types of phonological correspondences in the text. I argue that these correspondences function as an important poetic device, and that they may have (consciously or unconsciously) influenced the poet’s (or poets’) choices of words and expressions. This may help us understand why certain strange and/or foreign words are used in the book and possibly also why certain emendations have been done. I further point out the playful aspect of sound as a poetic device, and I view this as a counterweight to the extremely grave content of the text. This “pleasure of play” is moreover on normative grounds pictured as a feminine principle. The feminine part of God and creation is denied and suppressed in all of the Hebrew Bible, and I feel compelled to protest against this injustice in any way possible. The poetic function is an aesthetic phenomenon, and I have pictured this as a woman, bringing life and reprieve to poor Job, in his endless misery