Primacies - by Michael Fishbane (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Primacies begins with the assertion that there are primary languages before ordinary language, and these preverbal enunciations give voice to the depths of the human condition. These expressions include tears, the primal cry, and laughter. For Michael Fishbane, these primacies express the instinctive and raw emotions of our existential condition, and they are at the root of our most powerful literary expressions-of sorrow, loss, joy, and fulfillment. Through examples drawn from ancient, medieval, and modern sources in diverse cultures, Fishbane explores the verbal formulations of primacies in modes of structured language like poetic lyric or discourse. By giving articulation to foundational feelings and experiences through literary means, the primary emotions of the original creators are transformed-as are the sensibilities of those who subsequently engage these literary texts. Primacies is an attempt to consider the intersections of life experiences and their literary expressions. The result is a lived hermeneutics, both personal and cultural, that expands the theological project Fishbane developed in Sacred Attunement and Fragile Finitude"--

Book Synopsis

A powerful exploration of how literature expresses and transforms our earliest preverbal experiences.

Primacies begins with the assertion that our earliest preverbal experiences are accompanied by a primary language--a universal expression of tears, cries, and laughter offered long before we learn our distinctive, ordinary languages. For Michael Fishbane, these "primacies" release the raw feelings of our existential condition and catalyze our most powerful literary expressions of sorrow, joy, and fulfillment.

In this book, Fishbane explores how ancient, medieval, and modern literature and poetry express and transform these primal sensations. Building on his theological project begun in Sacred Attunement and Fragile Finitude, Fishbane offers here a radically new lived hermeneutics that seeks to do nothing less than redefine the relationship between experience and language.

Review Quotes

"At the threshold of speech, Fishbane traces the primacies of experience--those silent stirrings that give rise to expression before words appear. Through a luminous engagement with diverse Jewish literary genres, he explores how the Jewish imagination is rooted in these preverbal depths. In an age of linguistic saturation and spiritual distraction, this book offers a contemplative return to the spaces between feeling and form, self and language--an invitation to dwell with the mysteries that underlie expression and animate our encounters with the world, texts, others, and ourselves."--Elie Holzer, Bar-Ilan University

"Fishbane's Primacies is an extraordinary meditation on how meaning emerges through a dynamic encounter with primordial elements--at once foundational and abyssal. Interweaving philosophy, hermeneutics, and a masterful curation and interpretation of Jewish sources from antiquity to the present, Fishbane offers profound insights into cultural renewal and human creativity. With poetic clarity, he guides readers through the perpetual human task of forging sense amid life's depths and upheavals, revealing vital pathways for individual and communal regeneration."--Omer Michaelis, Tel Aviv University

About the Author

Michael Fishbane is the Nathan Cummings Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many books, including Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology and Fragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology, also published by the University of Chicago Press.