“Love in Lines: Syntax, Metre, and Stanza in Akkadian Love Literature” - Daniele Borkowski (University College London)

Daniele Borkowski (University College London) just delivered a fascinating online lecture regarding “Love in Lines: Syntax, Metre, and Stanza in Akkadian Love Literature.” His presentation focused on the poetics of the compositions, which has many parallels with biblical Hebrew poetry. I include my summary notes here of things that seem particularly relevant for comparative study of the poetry of the Bible.

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Summary of the Poetics of Akkadian Love Poetry of the 2nd Millennium:

• The standard Akkadian verse (he called them lines) has four stresses divided by a caesura that distinguishes two lines (he called them stichoi). Prepositions are not generally factored into the stress-count. The 2/2 pattern is the most common and comprises about 40% of the verses. Next common is 2/1 (about 20%) and 1/2 (about 10%). These three metrical patterns with four or three stressed syllables account for about 70% of verses. He has not yet studied whether any of these metrical patterns apply consistently across full compositions.
• Clausula accadica: This principle says Akkadian lines should end in a trochee (stressed followed by unstressed syllable); about 71% follow this rule, a consistency which supports the existence of meter in the corpus.
• About 70% of the time there is one syntactic clause per line (his stich, I think).
• About 75% paratactic clauses vs. 25% hypotactic; compositions usually have a mix, rather than consistently one style.
• In paratactical constructions, the verbs are often put at the beginning and end of the verse (sim. chiasm).
• He frequently sees patterns in the semantic relationships between lines (stichoi within a verse; e.g., parallelism), including reiteration, contrast, elaboration, et al.
• A substantial proportion of tablets from the 2nd millennium (8/32) draw horizontal lines (usually plus blank space) to indicate stanza breaks. The number of verses per stanza varies both within compositions, but the most common is around 5-6 verses per stanza. Most commonly, these indicate changes of speaker.
• The graphic distinction between different lines (stichoi) is standard practice from the 1st millennium onward, but rare in the 2nd millennium. Most commonly, each verse is written on a single row with a blank space/caesura in the middle separating the lines (stichoi), such that the tablet looks like it is laid out in two columns. One Neo-Babylonian tablet actually further differentiates each accentual unit within each line. Sometimes scribes misdivide the lines within a verse.