'Speaking to my heart': a close reading of Qohelet as a literary character

Abstract

This project seeks to analyze Qohelet’s first-person speech as a route to understand his character through the words spoken by himself. In scholarship, although Qohelet is recognized as a character, it is often analyzed with the Solomonic figure in Hebrew biblical history or certain social roles from the presumed historical setting of Ecclesiastes. However, Ecclesiastes’ social setting, dating, and authorship are constantly debated as historical evidence are scarce. Therefore, this thesis proposes to reconstruct the Qohelet character by taking the text as literary evidence. It aims to explore the richness of this character by employing the close reading method proposed by New Criticism in English literary studies which continues to influence the way to read a literary text today. It focuses on providing a narrative reading and analysis of the text particularly on passages (1:12-2:26; 3:9-22; 7:15-8:1; and 8:16-9:12) where Qohelet specifically speaks to himself, to his personified heart (לב ,(or to his intended audience. Close reading suggests stripping away any historically authorial and editorial influences on the meaning of the immediate text, and in turn asks how the text may bring out meaning from its content, structure, rhetorical devices, and literary construct by taking the text as a literary unity. Through dissecting the narrative first-person components, the research should show how Qohelet’s character development functions within the text, how the autobiographical voice influences or participates in the meaning of the text, and how these elements simultaneously shape the character of Qohelet and the sapiential theology of the book