The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (review)
Rent from DeepDyve- The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary
Robert Alter’s avowed reason for attempting a new translation of Psalms is that “the King James version is often (though not invariably) eloquent, but it ignores the rhythms of the Hebrew almost entirely.” King James’s Psalm 23:4 reads: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Seventeen words, twenty syllables. Alter’s version has thirteen words, fourteen syllables: “Though I walk in the vale of death’s shadow, / I fear no harm.” This is reasonable. But elsewhere I have qualms. “Lead singer” instead of “chief musician” [End Page 509] gives too much to pop culture. King James’s version of Psalm 145:14 is: “The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down.” Alter’s: “The Lord props up all who fall / and makes all who are bent stand erect.” Like soldiers on guard? But Alter’s most compelling motive is to remove the theology from Psalms as far as possible: “The relationship between man and God is as urgent as readers of Psalms in English have always imagined, but it is not enacted in the kind of theological theater that has conventionally been assumed.” If true, so much the worse.
Denis Donoghue holds the Henry James Professorship in English and American Letters at New York University and is a member of both the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His is the author of some two dozen books, including Connoisseurs of Chaos, Ferocious Alphabets, On Eloquence, The Practice of Reading, Adam’s Curse, The Pure Good of Theory, Being Modern Together, We Irish, The Sovereign Ghost, The Ordinary Universe, and The Third Voice.
