Robert Alter

A Translation with Commentary

The Book of Psalms

The Five Books of Moses

Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes : a translation with commentary

The wisdom books

Dahlia Ravikovitch

New and Selected Poems

The Window

The Art of Bible Translation

Alter not only speaks about the distinctive pleasures of reading poems, plays, and novels, but shows, by recourse to many passages from English, American, and French literature, how rich and diverse these pleasures can be. Defining literary language as "an intricate, inventively designed vehicle for setting the mind in restless pleasing motion," he proposes a set of concepts that will point a return to reading. He also offers fresh explanations of familiar terms such as character, structure, allusions, and perspective, and analyzes various texts. ISBN 0-671-62783-X: $18.95.

In an Ideological Age

The Pleasures of Reading

Three decades ago, renowned literary expert Robert Alter radically expanded the horizons of biblical scholarship by recasting the Bible as not only a human creation but a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In The Art of Biblical Poetry, his companion to the seminal The Art of Biblical Narrative, Alter takes his analysis beyond narrative craft to investigate the use of Hebrew poetry in the Bible. Updated with a new preface, myriad revisions, and passages from Alter's own critically acclaimed biblical translations, The Art of Biblical Poetry is an indispensable tool for understanding the Bible and its poetry.

The Art of Biblical Poetry

Studies in the Picaresque Novel

Rogue's Progress

The art of biblical narrative

"An award-winning translation brings new immediacy to these beloved books of the Bible. Read them for the first time, again. These five late biblical books offer readers a range of pleasures not usually associated with the Bible. They are artful, entertaining literary works-innovative, even startling. Women often stand center stage. Song of Songs is a celebration of young love, frankly sensuous, with no reference to God or covenant. It offers some of the most beautiful love poems of the ancient world. The story of Queen Esther's shrewd triumph is a secular entertainment that mixes farce with sly sexual comedy. The character of Ruth embodies the virtues of loyalty, love, and charity in a harmonious world. Enigma replaces harmony in Daniel, whose feverish night dreams envision the end of time. And the traditions of prophecy are recast in the tale of a fish that, on God's command, swallows Jonah and imprisons him in its dark wet innards for three days. Alter's translation restores the original power of these popular books"--

the Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Jonah, and Daniel : a translation with commentary

Strong as death is love

How the King James Bible has influenced the style of the American novel from Melville to Cormac McCarthy The simple yet grand language of the King James Bible has pervaded American culture from the beginning—and its powerful eloquence continues to be felt even today. In this book, acclaimed biblical translator and literary critic Robert Alter traces some of the fascinating ways that American novelists—from Melville, Hemingway, and Faulkner to Bellow, Marilynne Robinson, and Cormac McCarthy—have drawn on the rich stylistic resources of the canonical English Bible to fashion their own strongly resonant styles and distinctive visions of reality. Showing the radically different manners in which the words, idioms, syntax, and cadences of this Bible are woven into Moby-Dick, Absalom, Absalom!, The Sun Also Rises, Seize the Day, Gilead, and The Road, Alter reveals the wide variety of stylistic and imaginative possibilities that American novelists have found in Scripture. At the same time, Alter demonstrates the importance of looking closely at the style of literary works, making the case that style is not merely an aesthetic phenomenon but is the very medium through which writers conceive their worlds.

American Prose and the King James Bible

Pen of Iron

Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature Robert Alter

One of the great characters of the Bible, and literature, is rendered fully in a new translation that includes historical and literary commentary

A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel

The David Story

Fielding and the Nature of the Novel

Analyzes the structure, functions, and metaphors of the poetry in Psalms, Job, Proverbs, and other books of the Old Testament.

Art Of Biblical Poetry

Alter explores the ways in which a range of iconoclastic 20th century authors have put to use the stories, language, and imagery found in the Hebrew Bible. Includes attention on Franz Kafka's "Amerika" and James Joyce's "Ulysses".

Modern Writing and the Authority of Scripture

Canon and Creativity

אורי אלטר

An exposition of the relationship between tradition an modernity reflected in the writings of three Jewish scholars

Tradition and Modernity in Kafka, Benjamin, and Scholem

Necessary Angels

Hebrew and Modernity

Robert Alter’s award-winning translation of the Hebrew Bible continues with the stirring narrative of Israel’s ancient history. To read the books of the Former Prophets in this riveting Robert Alter translation is to discover an entertaining amalgam of hair-raising action and high literary achievement. Samson, the vigilante superhero of Judges, slaughters thousands of Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. David, the Machiavellian prince of Samuel and Kings, is one of the great literary figures of antiquity. A ruthless monarch, David embodies a life in full dimension as it moves from brilliant youth through vigorous prime to failing old age. Samson and David play emblematic roles in the rise and fall of ancient Israel, a nation beset by internal divisions and external threats. A scattering of contentious desert tribes joined by faith in a special covenant with God, Israel emerges through the bloody massacres of Canaanite populations recounted in Joshua and the anarchic violence of Judges. The resourceful David consolidates national power, but it is power rooted in conspiracy, and David dies bitterly isolated in his court, surrounded by enemies. His successor, Solomon, maintains national unity through his legendary wisdom, wealth, and grand public vision, but after his death Israel succumbs to internal discord and foreign conquest. Near its end, the saga of ancient Israel returns to the supernatural. In Elijah’s fiery ascent to heaven many would find the harbinger of a messiah coming to save his people in their time of need.

Robert Alter

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