Is it possible to define poetry.

I spent a little time reading Poetic Diction by the Inkling, Owen Barfield. This book had a considerable influence on C.S.Lewis in that it allowed him to reconcile the scientific view of the world with what goes beyond it. I must say, the leap is somewhat over my head, but I don't disagree. There is something more than our science can deliver.

I found Barfield tough going and scanned most of it. His word studies were fulfilling, but his allusions were to many things that I had not read in Latin, Greek or English, and his theories I found rather vague. I wasn't sure whether he was for them or against them. Yet I do get metaphor.

Now Tim of the 5 minute Bible has challenged me to define what I mean when I think something in the Bible is poetry or prose. I need to respond. And here it is. As I noted in a comment on the previous post:

Raabe (Anchor Bible Commentary on Obadiah, p 6-7) cites some measures related to the use of את and אשׁר. "In standard prose the particle is 15% or more whereas in poetry it is 5% or less." This is easy to verify. Then he says: "if a section has 100 words, את and אשׁר and the definite article ה will comprise five or fewer of the words." This too is testable in my data.

So what would I test? It turns out it is not quite so easy as I thought. Without considering translation, I cannot distinguish the homonym of אשׁר, = happy, from the relative pronoun. It appears also that I must add the counts for all the above together to discover the percentage. But the first statement of the rule in Raabe does not hold for my data (below).

I began by checking the Psalms against Obadiah and I discovered that the range of occurrence of the particle aleph-taf, the object marker, is not significantly different from any of the other books that I currently have in my data. The highest percentage that I found for אשׁר was in Psalm 1 at 7.5%.  But that psalm makes a point of all the assonance in that word.

My superficial tests did not appear significant with respect to the words by themselves, until I added the count of definite articles to the word count.That seems rather arbitrary but Raabe's second statement of the rule (contradicting the first statement) seems to require it. The definite article usage is more significant in determining prose than the words  את and אשׁר. So these stats perhaps have some bearing on poetic style.

I know the poetry of the Psalms has parallelism and recurrence - but it does not have parallelism everywhere and it has many differing patterns of recurrence as I have demonstrated. Parallelism, recurrence, chiasm, and so on also occur in prose. So what is the difference? Is it volume? or is it terseness again appealed to by Raabe. One unquestionable difference is that three books have a different set of accents. My gut feel is simply that poetry has shorter lines, and that the frequency of parallelism is greater, and that there are more uses of ring structures formed by recurring word-roots than in prose.

Here are the stats to scan... You can see that I highlighted a few expected and unexpected anomalies, poetic chapters in prose books, and poems in the Psalms that have values that would make them not poetry. So maybe to the stats. Sometimes my available data is too sparse for the measurement.

Book	Ch.	Count אשׁר + את	Count ה	Words in database	Word %	Article %	Total %	Result, 1 = Prose > 15
1 KINGS	3	21	22	248	8.5	8.9	17.3	1
1 SAMUEL	2	0	1	119	0	0.8	0.8	0
1 SAMUEL	21	13	34	284	4.6	12	16.5	1
2 SAMUEL	6	29	35	377	7.7	9.3	17	1
2 SAMUEL	18	2	4	30	6.7	13.3	20	1
2 SAMUEL	19	0	3	31	0	9.7	9.7	0
AMOS	1	4	14	212	1.9	6.6	8.5	0
AMOS	2	10	16	214	4.7	7.5	12.1	0
AMOS	3	6	22	207	2.9	10.6	13.5	0
AMOS	4	7	19	215	3.3	8.8	12.1	0
AMOS	5	12	25	321	3.7	7.8	11.5	0
AMOS	6	3	24	177	1.7	13.6	15.3	1
AMOS	7	4	12	255	1.6	4.7	6.3	0
AMOS	8	2	23	192	1	12	13	0
AMOS	9	15	32	252	6	12.7	18.7	1
DEUTERONOMY	5	51	37	473	10.8	7.8	18.6	1
DEUTERONOMY	6	2	3	48	4.2	6.3	10.4	0
DEUTERONOMY	8	2	2	16	12.5	12.5	25	1
DEUTERONOMY	15	9	4	71	12.7	5.6	18.3	1
DEUTERONOMY	19	1	0	12	8.3	0	8.3	0
DEUTERONOMY	33	2	3	64	3.1	4.7	7.8	0
ESTHER	1	16	68	371	4.3	18.3	22.6	1
ESTHER	2	31	69	438	7.1	15.8	22.8	1
ESTHER	3	16	51	303	5.3	16.8	22.1	1
ESTHER	4	26	36	286	9.1	12.6	21.7	1
ESTHER	5	23	44	265	8.7	16.6	25.3	1
ESTHER	6	26	53	263	9.9	20.2	30	1
ESTHER	7	8	47	187	4.3	25.1	29.4	1
ESTHER	8	24	66	343	7	19.2	26.2	1
ESTHER	9	48	85	544	8.8	15.6	24.4	1
ESTHER	10	1	7	46	2.2	15.2	17.4	1
EXODUS	3	26	37	395	6.6	9.4	15.9	1
EXODUS	14	28	42	347	8.1	12.1	20.2	1
EXODUS	15	1	3	26	3.8	11.5	15.4	1
EXODUS	20	36	24	312	11.5	7.7	19.2	1
EZRA	1	9	17	151	6	11.3	17.2	1
GENESIS	1	3	7	52	5.8	13.5	19.2	1
GENESIS	22	37	28	307	12.1	9.1	21.2	1
GENESIS	24	58	95	919	6.3	10.3	16.6	1
GENESIS	25	30	17	415	7.2	4.1	11.3	0
GENESIS	29	28	39	471	5.9	8.3	14.2	0
GENESIS	38	14	22	405	3.5	5.4	8.9	0
HABAKKUK	1	3	14	197	1.5	7.1	8.6	0
HABAKKUK	2	3	14	262	1.1	5.3	6.5	0
HABAKKUK	3	2	4	212	0.9	1.9	2.8	0
HOSEA	1	7	7	137	5.1	5.1	10.2	0
ISAIAH	1	1	0	16	6.3	0	6.3	0
ISAIAH	2	0	3	46	0	6.5	6.5	0
ISAIAH	3	3	28	251	1.2	11.2	12.4	0
ISAIAH	5	3	2	100	3	2	5	0
ISAIAH	6	8	18	188	4.3	9.6	13.8	0
ISAIAH	14	4	30	376	1.1	8	9	0
ISAIAH	19	11	17	327	3.4	5.2	8.6	0
ISAIAH	24	2	15	133	1.5	11.3	12.8	0
ISAIAH	35	0	0	20	0	0	0	0
ISAIAH	36	3	6	28	10.7	21.4	32.1	1
ISAIAH	44	2	3	104	1.9	2.9	4.8	0
ISAIAH	53	7	4	166	4.2	2.4	6.6	0
ISAIAH	54	6	7	221	2.7	3.2	5.9	0
ISAIAH	55	7	15	185	3.8	8.1	11.9	0
ISAIAH	56	1	0	16	6.3	0	6.3	0
ISAIAH	58	0	2	16	0	12.5	12.5	0
ISAIAH	63	3	1	98	3.1	1	4.1	0
ISAIAH	64	2	7	128	1.6	5.5	7	0
JEREMIAH	20	4	4	111	3.6	3.6	7.2	0
JOB	1	9	32	345	2.6	9.3	11.9	0
JOB	2	12	23	209	5.7	11	16.7	1
JOB	3	4	10	204	2	4.9	6.9	0
JOB	4	2	4	149	1.3	2.7	4	0
JOB	5	2	7	205	1	3.4	4.4	0
JOB	6	1	11	221	0.5	5	5.4	0
JOB	7	1	3	172	0.6	1.7	2.3	0
JOB	8	1	3	166	0.6	1.8	2.4	0
JOB	9	3	5	260	1.2	1.9	3.1	0
JOB	10	1	6	169	0.6	3.6	4.1	0
JOB	11	0	6	148	0	4.1	4.1	0
JOB	12	3	4	183	1.6	2.2	3.8	0
JOB	13	4	12	203	2	5.9	7.9	0
JOB	14	2	2	177	1.1	1.1	2.3	0
JOB	15	2	7	261	0.8	2.7	3.4	0
JOB	16	0	4	172	0	2.3	2.3	0
JOB	17	0	4	112	0	3.6	3.6	0
JOB	18	0	2	142	0	1.4	1.4	0
JOB	19	2	3	213	0.9	1.4	2.3	0
JOB	20	0	2	208	0	1	1	0
JOB	21	0	3	240	0	1.3	1.3	0
JOB	22	2	9	210	1	4.3	5.2	0
JOB	23	2	3	118	1.7	2.5	4.2	0
JOB	24	0	2	203	0	1	1	0
JOB	25	0	3	43	0	7	7	0
JOB	26	1	5	100	1	5	6	0
JOB	27	3	5	169	1.8	3	4.7	0
JOB	28	1	9	207	0.5	4.3	4.8	0
JOB	29	3	1	169	1.8	0.6	2.4	0
JOB	30	1	4	227	0.4	1.8	2.2	0
JOB	31	1	2	310	0.3	0.6	1	0
JOB	32	6	9	197	3	4.6	7.6	0
JOB	33	0	11	246	0	4.5	4.5	0
JOB	34	2	10	297	0.7	3.4	4	0
JOB	35	1	3	116	0.9	2.6	3.4	0
JOB	36	3	4	240	1.3	1.7	2.9	0
JOB	37	2	7	188	1.1	3.7	4.8	0
JOB	38	2	21	299	0.7	7	7.7	0
JOB	39	2	4	213	0.9	1.9	2.8	0
JOB	40	4	8	166	2.4	4.8	7.2	0
JOB	41	1	4	226	0.4	1.8	2.2	0
JOB	42	12	13	241	5	5.4	10.4	0
JONAH	1	10	41	254	3.9	16.1	20.1	1
JONAH	2	4	4	112	3.6	3.6	7.1	0
JONAH	3	5	19	139	3.6	13.7	17.3	1
JONAH	4	7	14	183	3.8	7.7	11.5	0
JOSHUA	1	3	3	30	10	10	20	1
LAMENTATIONS	1	7	14	375	1.9	3.7	5.6	0
LAMENTATIONS	2	6	19	401	1.5	4.7	6.2	0
LAMENTATIONS	3	1	19	381	0.3	5	5.2	0
LAMENTATIONS	4	2	11	258	0.8	4.3	5	0
LAMENTATIONS	5	1	2	145	0.7	1.4	2.1	0
LEVITICUS	6	4	4	64	6.3	6.3	12.5	0
LEVITICUS	20	2	0	14	14.3	0	14.3	0
NAHUM	1	0	6	155	0	3.9	3.9	0
NAHUM	2	2	14	174	1.1	8	9.2	0
NAHUM	3	3	8	232	1.3	3.4	4.7	0
NUMBERS	6	2	0	56	3.6	0	3.6	0
NUMBERS	11	8	20	147	5.4	13.6	19	1
NUMBERS	15	8	6	62	12.9	9.7	22.6	1
OBADIAH	1	14	19	291	4.8	6.5	11.3	0
PROVERBS	31	3	2	222	1.4	0.9	2.3	0
PSALMS	1	5	2	67	7.5	3	10.4	0
PSALMS	2	3	3	92	3.3	3.3	6.5	0
PSALMS	3	2	4	70	2.9	5.7	8.6	0
PSALMS	4	0	2	77	0	2.6	2.6	0
PSALMS	5	0	7	111	0	6.3	6.3	0
PSALMS	6	0	2	84	0	2.4	2.4	0
PSALMS	7	1	4	142	0.7	2.8	3.5	0
PSALMS	8	2	5	77	2.6	6.5	9.1	0
PSALMS	9	1	3	165	0.6	1.8	2.4	0
PSALMS	10	1	4	161	0.6	2.5	3.1	0
PSALMS	11	0	2	68	0	2.9	2.9	0
PSALMS	12	3	3	79	3.8	3.8	7.6	0
PSALMS	13	1	3	55	1.8	5.5	7.3	0
PSALMS	14	1	4	73	1.4	5.5	6.8	0
PSALMS	15	1	1	55	1.8	1.8	3.6	0
PSALMS	16	5	0	97	5.2	0	5.2	0
PSALMS	17	2	7	124	1.6	5.6	7.3	0
PSALMS	18	3	8	397	0.8	2	2.8	0
PSALMS	19	0	4	126	0	3.2	3.2	0
PSALMS	20	0	3	70	0	4.3	4.3	0
PSALMS	21	1	2	104	1	1.9	2.9	0
PSALMS	22	1	7	254	0.4	2.8	3.1	0
PSALMS	23	0	0	57	0	0	0	0
PSALMS	24	2	7	89	2.2	7.9	10.1	0
PSALMS	25	2	9	159	1.3	5.7	6.9	0
PSALMS	26	2	0	85	2.4	0	2.4	0
PSALMS	27	4	2	149	2.7	1.3	4	0
PSALMS	28	2	3	96	2.1	3.1	5.2	0
PSALMS	29	2	5	91	2.2	5.5	7.7	0
PSALMS	30	0	6	97	0	6.2	6.2	0
PSALMS	31	5	12	220	2.3	5.5	7.7	0
PSALMS	32	2	5	110	1.8	4.5	6.4	0
PSALMS	33	4	15	161	2.5	9.3	11.8	0
PSALMS	34	7	9	165	4.2	5.5	9.7	0
PSALMS	35	4	7	229	1.7	3.1	4.8	0
PSALMS	36	0	4	100	0	4	4	0
PSALMS	37	2	7	298	0.7	2.3	3	0
PSALMS	38	2	7	168	1.2	4.2	5.4	0
PSALMS	39	0	6	129	0	4.7	4.7	0
PSALMS	40	3	4	185	1.6	2.2	3.8	0
PSALMS	41	4	3	119	3.4	2.5	5.9	0
PSALMS	42	0	4	132	0	3	3	0
PSALMS	43	0	1	59	0	1.7	1.7	0
PSALMS	44	1	8	197	0.5	4.1	4.6	0
PSALMS	45	0	6	160	0	3.8	3.8	0
PSALMS	46	1	3	100	1	3	4	0
PSALMS	47	3	4	77	3.9	5.2	9.1	0
PSALMS	48	1	3	111	0.9	2.7	3.6	0
PSALMS	49	0	4	167	0	2.4	2.4	0
PSALMS	50	0	5	178	0	2.8	2.8	0
PSALMS	51	2	7	153	1.3	4.6	5.9	0
PSALMS	52	0	4	90	0	4.4	4.4	0
PSALMS	53	1	5	77	1.3	6.5	7.8	0
PSALMS	54	0	6	62	0	9.7	9.7	0
PSALMS	55	2	4	192	1	2.1	3.1	0
PSALMS	56	2	6	120	1.7	5	6.7	0
PSALMS	57	0	6	105	0	5.7	5.7	0
PSALMS	58	1	2	100	1	2	3	0
PSALMS	59	1	10	156	0.6	6.4	7.1	0
PSALMS	60	3	5	113	2.7	4.4	7.1	0
PSALMS	61	0	2	68	0	2.9	2.9	0
PSALMS	62	0	2	117	0	1.7	1.7	0
PSALMS	63	0	2	93	0	2.2	2.2	0
PSALMS	64	1	1	82	1.2	1.2	2.4	0
PSALMS	65	1	2	109	0.9	1.8	2.8	0
PSALMS	66	4	10	154	2.6	6.5	9.1	0
PSALMS	67	2	0	53	3.8	0	3.8	0
PSALMS	68	0	6	310	0	1.9	1.9	0
PSALMS	69	3	4	291	1	1.4	2.4	0
PSALMS	70	0	3	47	0	6.4	6.4	0
PSALMS	71	3	10	203	1.5	4.9	6.4	0
PSALMS	72	2	3	162	1.2	1.9	3.1	0
PSALMS	73	1	4	193	0.5	2.1	2.6	0
PSALMS	74	1	9	195	0.5	4.6	5.1	0
PSALMS	75	0	3	87	0	3.4	3.4	0
PSALMS	76	0	2	90	0	2.2	2.2	0
PSALMS	77	0	9	154	0	5.8	5.8	0
PSALMS	78	14	20	530	2.6	3.8	6.4	0
PSALMS	79	8	8	132	6.1	6.1	12.1	0
PSALMS	80	2	11	141	1.4	7.8	9.2	0
PSALMS	81	0	4	125	0	3.2	3.2	0
PSALMS	82	0	5	61	0	8.2	8.2	0
PSALMS	83	2	1	130	1.5	0.8	2.3	0
PSALMS	84	5	4	116	4.3	3.4	7.8	0
PSALMS	85	0	6	96	0	6.3	6.3	0
PSALMS	86	1	9	147	0.7	6.1	6.8	0
PSALMS	87	0	1	54	0	1.9	1.9	0
PSALMS	88	1	9	142	0.7	6.3	7	0
PSALMS	89	4	12	384	1	3.1	4.2	0
PSALMS	90	0	3	140	0	2.1	2.1	0
PSALMS	91	0	0	112	0	0	0	0
PSALMS	92	1	2	112	0.9	1.8	2.7	0
PSALMS	93	0	0	45	0	0	0	0
PSALMS	94	3	8	169	1.8	4.7	6.5	0
PSALMS	95	4	2	89	4.5	2.2	6.7	0
PSALMS	96	1	9	112	0.9	8	8.9	0
PSALMS	97	0	10	95	0	10.5	10.5	0
PSALMS	98	0	9	74	0	12.2	12.2	0
PSALMS	99	0	4	83	0	4.8	4.8	0
PSALMS	100	1	3	44	2.3	6.8	9.1	0
PSALMS	101	2	1	83	2.4	1.2	3.6	0
PSALMS	102	6	8	212	2.8	3.8	6.6	0
PSALMS	103	5	7	167	3	4.2	7.2	0
PSALMS	104	4	14	271	1.5	5.2	6.6	0
PSALMS	105	12	6	294	4.1	2	6.1	0
PSALMS	106	15	18	331	4.5	5.4	10	0
PSALMS	107	1	3	278	0.4	1.1	1.4	0
PSALMS	108	0	3	98	0	3.1	3.1	0
PSALMS	109	5	7	227	2.2	3.1	5.3	0
PSALMS	110	0	0	65	0	0	0	0
PSALMS	111	0	0	74	0	0	0	0
PSALMS	112	3	1	79	3.8	1.3	5.1	0
PSALMS	113	1	4	60	1.7	6.7	8.3	0
PSALMS	114	0	8	52	0	15.4	15.4	1
PSALMS	115	4	6	135	3	4.4	7.4	0
PSALMS	116	3	6	131	2.3	4.6	6.9	0
PSALMS	117	1	1	17	5.9	5.9	11.8	0
PSALMS	118	1	8	198	0.5	4	4.5	0
PSALMS	119	13	31	1064	1.2	2.9	4.1	0
PSALMS	120	0	2	51	0	3.9	3.9	0
PSALMS	121	1	2	56	1.8	3.6	5.4	0
PSALMS	122	0	2	62	0	3.2	3.2	0
PSALMS	123	1	5	41	2.4	12.2	14.6	0
PSALMS	124	0	5	57	0	8.8	8.8	0
PSALMS	125	1	7	49	2	14.3	16.3	1
PSALMS	126	2	5	50	4	10	14	0
PSALMS	127	4	5	60	6.7	8.3	15	0
PSALMS	128	2	2	47	4.3	4.3	8.5	0
PSALMS	129	1	3	54	1.9	5.6	7.4	0
PSALMS	130	1	5	54	1.9	9.3	11.1	0
PSALMS	131	0	1	33	0	3	3	0
PSALMS	132	2	1	131	1.5	0.8	2.3	0
PSALMS	133	1	6	40	2.5	15	17.5	1
PSALMS	134	2	2	25	8	8	16	1
PSALMS	135	7	7	167	4.2	4.2	8.4	0
PSALMS	136	2	15	166	1.2	9	10.2	0
PSALMS	137	8	4	84	9.5	4.8	14.3	0
PSALMS	138	1	1	76	1.3	1.3	2.6	0
PSALMS	139	2	3	177	1.1	1.7	2.8	0
PSALMS	140	3	1	116	2.6	0.9	3.4	0
PSALMS	141	1	1	95	1.1	1.1	2.1	0
PSALMS	142	1	5	75	1.3	6.7	8	0
PSALMS	143	1	6	117	0.9	5.1	6	0
PSALMS	144	6	8	130	4.6	6.2	10.8	0
PSALMS	145	6	6	152	3.9	3.9	7.9	0
PSALMS	146	6	3	85	7.1	3.5	10.6	0
PSALMS	147	4	6	141	2.8	4.3	7.1	0
PSALMS	148	5	7	111	4.5	6.3	10.8	0
PSALMS	149	0	0	63	0	0	0	0
PSALMS	150	0	1	37	0	2.7	2.7	0
QOHELET	1	5	20	215	2.3	9.3	11.6	0
QOHELET	2	12	33	381	3.1	8.7	11.8	0
QOHELET	3	14	39	273	5.1	14.3	19.4	1
QOHELET	4	21	27	237	8.9	11.4	20.3	1
QOHELET	5	14	25	266	5.3	9.4	14.7	0
QOHELET	6	5	12	170	2.9	7.1	10	0
QOHELET	7	21	27	330	6.4	8.2	14.5	0
QOHELET	8	30	22	281	10.7	7.8	18.5	1
QOHELET	9	19	27	309	6.1	8.7	14.9	0
QOHELET	10	5	17	196	2.6	8.7	11.2	0
QOHELET	11	7	21	143	4.9	14.7	19.6	1
QOHELET	12	10	37	186	5.4	19.9	25.3	1
RUTH	1	8	18	325	2.5	5.5	8	0
RUTH	2	26	42	378	6.9	11.1	18	1
RUTH	3	20	23	258	7.8	8.9	16.7	1
RUTH	4	31	44	335	9.3	13.1	22.4	1
SONG	1	3	13	150	2	8.7	10.7	0
SONG	2	4	31	177	2.3	17.5	19.8	1
SONG	3	6	9	133	4.5	6.8	11.3	0
SONG	4	2	12	178	1.1	6.7	7.9	0
SONG	5	5	9	185	2.7	4.9	7.6	0
SONG	6	2	14	114	1.8	12.3	14	0
SONG	7	1	13	139	0.7	9.4	10.1	0
SONG	8	6	10	174	3.4	5.7	9.2	0
ZECHARIAH	14	16	55	364	4.4	15.1	19.5	1
ZEPHANIAH	1	13	39	269	4.8	14.5	19.3	1
ZEPHANIAH	2	7	11	222	3.2	5	8.1	0
ZEPHANIAH	3	9	18	276	3.3	6.5	9.8	0