Twenty-fourth Day: Evening - Twenty-sixth Day: Evening

The sestina is a poem of thirty-six lines broken into six stanzas. Generally—but not always—English ones are in iambic pentameter (da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum). The particular feature that identifies this form is the last words of the various lines—the six words that end each line of the first stanza go on to end evry other line of the poem as well in a variety of different combinations. Thus, if the first line ended with "love," "see," "one," "and," now," and "heart," all of the lines in the other stanzas would end with those words too. It's a complicated form (not as bad as the pantoum) but it takes a lot of thought and figuring to make it work out correctly especially if you're also abiding by metrical requirements.

It's originally a medieval form and has fallen out of favor today for a number of reasons, the most significant of which, I think, is the prejudice of Romanticism. These prejudices rebel against highly figured or structured forms of poetry as being antithetical to authentic, genuine feeling. That is, the complicated form stifles the unbridled outpouring of emotion that constitutes true poetry in the minds of these critics. (Note that the best Romantic poets didn't necessarily demonstrate this, this attitude is more common among critics…) In short, this prejudice prefers free expression above a more formal style and casts aspersions upon its status as poetry. I find this attitude insulting—not because I'm a fonder singer of sestinas—but because poetry should include the more complex artful forms in addition to the freer, looser media (which can be just as rigid though in different ways).

As I was reading about the sestina this weekend it reminded me of the psalm that we've been slogging through as appointed by the prayer-book's psalm-cycle. Psalm 119 is a whopping 176 verses long and the BCP rightly spreads it over six offices. The reason for its length is its complex structure. You may have noted that the prayer book breaks it into 8 line sections and begins each of these with a Hebrew word. As it turns out, there are twenty-two of these eight line sections corresponding to the twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The names of the letters are those odd words. Psalm 119 is an acrostic, a poem where each successive line begins with each successive letter of the alphabet. (Pss 111 and 112 are also acrostics) The thing that separates 119 from the rest is that each of these eight line sections begins with the same letter. Thus you have eight lines beginning with "aleph," then eight beginning with "beth," eight beginning with ""gimel," and so on…

Furthermore—and this is why the sestina brought it to mind—there are six words that repeat in virtually every section: Hebrew words translated as "word," "law," "decrees," "statutes," "commandments," and "judgments." These words keep being woven back into the psalm in various combinations. Needless to say, the repetition of these elements is one of the things that makes this the preeminent Torah psalm.

Now, this psalm is also the psalm with the worst reputation in the Psalter—at least in certain crowds. The great 19th century biblical scholar Wellhausen and his followers down to the modern day have castigated this psalm as being the people's exhibit A in the collapse of true Israelite religion. In Wellhausen's view—highly influenced by the Romantics I might add—the pinnacle of Israelite religion was the eighth century prophets. Lone, tormented, spiritual geniuses who received a word from God then proclaimed it to the people who misunderstood and degraded it from a belief fuelled by spirit and inspiration into a religion shackled by law and regulation. Thus, for them, Ps 119 represents the victory of strict poetic formalism and theological legalism over a free-spirit religion of the heart. Using the harshest curse-word in the Romantic vocabulary they labeled it as nothing less than "artificial." I agree with their label; I completely disagree with their findings.

Ps 119 is artificial in the most literal of terms. It is an artifice, a cleverly and carefully constructed work. Yes, it's different from the free-flowing poetic style of Isaiah or the lament meters of Jeremiah and Lamentations. But it's no less poetry for that. To translate to a different medium for a second, it's like dismissing the carpet pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels because they're not impressionistic works after Monet… If the Romantics and Impressionists are art for and by the ESFP set, Ps 119 is poetry for the INTJ set. It's closely worked, intricate, and well-thought out. Furthermore, it embodies the virtues it extols. That is, it praises pouring over and internalizing text and this is precisely what it offers. The acrostic structure and the repeating words are not elements that can be fully appreciated in an oral environment. This is poetry that is meant to be read, not just heard. For its beauty and artistry to become apparent, you have to spend some real time live in and meditating in its text which is exactly the kind of reflection upon the Torah that it encourages.

Theologically, the opposition between the religion of the Prophets and that of the Law is the creation of a false dichotomy—it's not an either/or. Really reading the prophets will make it very clear that it's a both/and. The prophets never worked apart from the Law but instead spoke from it, with the Law internalized and appropriated. Their calls for justice, righteousness, care for the orphans and widows come directly from the Law, not apart from it. No, they weren't legalistic nor hide-bound but then—neither is the Law especially when we encounter it in Deuteronomy as a living agent to be bound into the body as a means for living in love.

As Christians, we believe with the Tradition that the Psalter is the prayer of the Church. Furthermore, they are preeminently the prayer of the Head of the Church, even Jesus Christ our Lord. I make this point to close with the words of Dr. Michael Root, one of the premiere theologians in the ELCA today and one of the architects of the Joint Declaration on Justification between the Lutheran and Roman churches. In his class on justification he cautioned us students and said, "Remember as you construct a theology of justification, it must also be one that can pray the words of Ps 119, 'Lord, how I love thy Law…'"