The Aesthetics of Biblical Acrostics

One of the most formally fixed types among biblical poems is the acrostic. Among the acrostics of the Hebrew Bible, the predominant form has the headword of each line or couplet follow sequentially in alphabetical order. However, there are a couple of striking examples in which the acrostic form is expanded, namely Lamentations 3 and Psalm 119. These expansions reveal different stances of individual poems with respect to the larger tradition. This essay explores the aesthetics of the acrostic as a poetic form and argues that cases in which the form is expanded offer insight into poetic experiment, whereby the tension between convention and innovation is on display. These examples suggest that forms themselves serve as sites of aesthetic exploration for ancient poets, exemplifying the intellectual potential of art, not merely as windows into “life setting” or statements of rhetorical content but also as dynamic, ultimately philosophical endeavors.