Note 409 — Chapter V · THE DIFFERENCING ELEMENTS OF COMMUNAL POETRY

Robertson’s objection to this is trivial (work quoted, p. 283), and shows a total lack of insight into the conditions of old communal song. “It is becoming more and more plain,” says Donovan, Lyre to Muse, p. 162, “that individuals could have had little to do with forming the fashions and manner of Hebrew song.” It sprang from the choral dance of the people, which later times called “idolatrous.”