Storytelling in the Psalter? Chances and Limits of a Narrative Psalm Analysis – Shown Exemplarily in Psalm 64

Abstract

Storytelling in the psalter is usually attributed to those psalms which relate stories of the history of Israel. Narratology, the theory and procedure of studying narrative representations, is usually applied to narratives. However, there are certain features in the psalms, which allow us to define them as narrative texts and therefore examine them by means of narratology. This paper aims to contribute to a genre-overlapping approach towards poetry by means of opening the way to showing the benefits, as well as limitations of narratology applied to poetical texts by applying the narratological categories narrator/ narrative voice, plot/build-up of tension, characters and characterization, as well as time and space to Psalm. 64.

Keywords

• Narrative analysis
• narratology and poetry
• Psalm 64
• cross genre approach
• metaphors
• enemies in Psalm 64
• lyrical “I”
• image of God