Reading and Writing Qohelet: Reflections on the Heart, Pleasure, and Death

• Author / Creator

  Sabo, Ellen R

• The act of reading and writing on Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) is not only the process that created this thesis, but also its subject. The book’s epilogue warns against excessive study and writing, but is itself an example of writing without end. As a supplement, it is undecidable whether the epilogue supports or supplants the body of the book. The second chapter focusses on Qohelet’s uncanny heart, which has a double nature and reveals a split self. The heart contains the desire to understand everything that happens in the world, the impetus for Qohelet’s quest. The last chapter deals with structure in 7:1–6 and 11:7–12:1. The passages are linked by the themes of pleasure and death. The first passage attempts to define what is good, but the seemingly solid advice ends in uncertainty. The second displays a paradoxical relationship in which death is present in life, and pleasure in death.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Uncanny
  • Death drive
  • Supplement
  • Epilogue
  • Qohelet
  • Ecclesiastes

• Graduation date

  2013-11

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3CR5NM72

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.