Marking Hebrew Memory in Early Modern English Lyric
[Thesis]
Phair, Veronica Jenny
Gibbons, Daniel
The Catholic University of America
2019
174
Ph.D.
The Catholic University of America
2019
Early modern devotional poets understood a distinct relationship of remembrance between God and David in the Hebrew Psalms and incorporated it into their writings. My dissertation argues that the Hebrew Psalms articulate a relationship of remembrance between God and the psalmist, which consists of two separate actions. The psalmist first remembers God's most sacred name, Yahweh, which transforms and renews his understanding of God's character. Second, God uses a physical sign, an ̓ot, to show His remembrance and love for the psalmist and the Israelites. Perceiving that these remembrances were conveyed through signs, Philip and Mary Sidney, John Donne, and George Herbert used the language of "marking" to capture the way in which God and the psalmist of the Hebrew Psalms remembered one another. These early modern poets either explained the first part of this relationship in the Hebrew Psalms, as Donne does in his Sermon upon Psalm 6:1, or they modeled it in their poetry. Philip and Mary Sidney's psalm translations highlight the significance of Yahweh's spoken and written name Jehovah, while Herbert's poems "Jesu" and "Love-joy" break apart Jesus' name similar to the way in which Kabbalists treat the name Yahweh. These poets also depicted the second part of this relationship: how God remembered them through signs. They portrayed these signs in ways that resembled the memorial signs of Hebrew Psalms 137 and 139. The meditation upon the marks of God's name-either though writing it, explaining it, or breaking the name apart-was a path to remembering God and Jesus as newly merciful and loving for the Sidneys, Donne, and Herbert. Just as their poetry meditated upon the marks of God's name, it likewise showed the marking remembrance of God, who marked their speakers in various ways to display His love for them.