CHAPTER VI
THE BEARING OF CERTAIN METRICAL
THEORIES ON CRITICISM AND
INTERPRETATION
HITHERTO our discussion has been confined to
the forms of parallelistic poetry. I have en-
deavoured to keep, as they should be kept,
distinct, the two forms, parallelism and rhythm,
while pointing out the intimate connexion that
often exists between them. Yet that connexion
is not so intimate but that either form may exist
apart, even in literatures that employ both.
Arabic "rhymed prose," which is not bound by
the strict laws of Arabic metre, often employs
parallelism as freely as any Hebrew poem;^1 on
the other hand much of the strictly metrical
Arabic poetry is totally lacking or exceedingly
deficient in parallelism,) and few Hebrew poems
maintain complete parallelism throughout.^2 If
it is customary, as it certainly seems to be, for
non-parallel couplets in a Hebrew poem to fall
into the same rhythm as the parallel couplets,
(^1) See above, pp. 40-43. (^2) See above, pp. 59 if.